Advanced grain cleaning solutions for mycotoxin reduction.

In order to efficiently reduce the mycotoxin content in food and feed, a whole value chain approach is needed starting from Good Agricultural Practices to prevent contamination in the field, to control measures to prevent mycotoxin production during the storage period and throughout the processing line, until final consumption. Grain cleaning is the most effective post-harvest mitigation strategy to reduce high levels of mycotoxins due to the efficient removal of mold-infected grains and grain fractions with high mycotoxin content. Several studies have been performed during the last few years to investigate the reduction of various Fusarium toxins in maize, deoxynivalenol in wheat and barley, ergot in rye, and aflatoxins in peanuts and maize. Typical cleaning steps include (i) mechanical size separation and dust removal by aspiration, (ii) separation based on density differences, and finally (iii) optical sorting. Within grain milling, often a fourth cleaning step is included, (iv) "debranning", i.e. removal of the outer layers of the pericarp. These equipments can process up to 250 tons of grain per hour. Recently a completely new cleaning technology has been developed to reduce aflatoxins in grains based on the spectral properties of fluorescence. These well-proven and recent innovations for mycotoxin reduction will be further discussed in the presentation, taking a whole value chain approach.