Food alert patterns for metal contamination analyses in seafoods: Longitudinal and geographical perspectives

The aims of this study are to explore metal contamination in food with respect to variations in: i) the levels found over a period of eleven months and/or ii) by food types; and iii) to report patterns in reporting between countries. The frequencies of reported cases of metal ion contamination were ≤ 25% of total food alerts with notable increases between June and October. The alerted food products were dominated by seafood, where the majority were due to Mercury contamination and were made by EU member states with Italy making 57 of the 102 reports. The contaminated seafoods originate in thirty two countries with only Spain producing over 10 contaminated seafood products with a total of 47. In conclusion, this analysis highlights the main detector and transgressor nations along with the seafood and metal types that lead to alerts owing to high levels of contamination.