Foods with complaints of fungal contamination and physical problems caused by their ingestion

Abstract

A survey concerning foods for which complaints of fungal contamination had been made was carried out by distributing and retrieving a questionnaire. The subject of the survey was foods that were examined for fungi by institutes and laboratories belonging to regulatory agencies following consumers' complaints or upon request from food companies to solve problems. We analyzed 1,096 cases recovered from 40 organizations located in 30 prefectures. Most foods with fungal contamination were "cake and snacks", "beverages" and "bakery products", and processed and cooked foods and beverages accounted for more than 90% of the complaints. The numbers of cases were greater in the summer and less in the winter. The major fungal genus detected in the suspect foods were Penicillium, Aspergillus and Cladosporium. Aspergillus niger was the dominant species contaminating bakery products. Complainers reported physical symptoms including diarrhea, stomach ache, nausea and vomiting in 18% of the cases in which they had eaten or drunk fungus-contaminated foods or beverages. There was no clear difference in the fungi detected between foods and beverages that caused symptoms and those that did not. The proportion of beverages was greater in the foods that induced symptoms than in the whole of the foods for which complaints were made. This was presumed to be because consumers drank fungus-contaminated beverages more often than they ate fungus-contaminated foods.