According to a WHO estimation about 25% of agricultural commodities world-wide are infected by molds, which contaminate foods with mycotoxins. The approaches how different countries deal with the consumers’ threat are diverse with almost no or few risk management actions in many countries. The most thorough risk assessment and management currently is applied in the European Union (EU), which may serve as a worldwide model in this respect.

In cereals, the most common fungal genus involved is Fusarium. Major Fusarium toxins such as deoxynivalenol, zearalenone and fumonisins are regulated by EU legislation. Analytical food chemistry has developed accurate methods for controlling these contaminants. However, during the last years so called “emerging” and “modified” mycotoxins have been discovered, which are either plant metabolites of the fungal toxins or produced by other ubiquitous fungi such as Alternaria species. These new compounds, the respective analytical tools and first risk assessments will be presented in the lecture.