Signal advice from BuRO on sampling wilderness meat from floodplains

Make sampling mandatory for all wild cattle from floodplains whose meat is offered for consumption. This is necessary to ensure food safety. That advice is given by the office for Risk Assessment & Research (BuRO) to the inspector general of the NVWA. BuRO also advises on important elements when taking representative samples of wilderness meat from floodplains. Furthermore, BuRO makes recommendations for further research.

What is wilderness meat?

Wilderness meat is meat from cattle breeds such as the Red Geus, Galloway and Scottish Highlander that graze in floodplains and other areas all year round. The animals are primarily used for nature management (grazing). Wilderness meat must be safe. Therefore, the meat may not contain excessive levels of contaminants such as dioxins, dioxin-like PCBs, heavy metals and PFAS. These are chemical contaminants that end up in food unintentionally.

Excessive levels of harmful substances in wilderness meat

In 2022, BuRO concluded that wilderness meat often contains excessive levels of contaminants. If people regularly eat wilderness meat, this potentially poses a health risk. Wild cattle from these floodplains are therefore currently not allowed to be slaughtered at the slaughterhouse and offered for consumption. Operators of these animals face problems to manage their herds as a result. There is also a loss of income from the sale of wilderness meat.

Reason for the investigation

Wildlife managers want to be able to demonstrate that wilderness meat does meet the legal standard under certain circumstances. For example, by additional measurements through sampling. However, developing an adequate sample is complex because the levels of contaminants can vary between periods, locations and animals. The former Inspection Directorate (now: Trade an slaughter Supervision Directorate ) asked BuRO for advice on this matter.

Research question

In this study, BuRO answered the following research question:

Which elements are important when developing or assessing a sampling strategy for wilderness meat from floodplains?

Conclusions

Without additional measures, there is a (very) high probability of excessive levels of dioxins, DL-PCBs and PFAS in wilderness meat from cattle from floodplains. It is likely that based on a representative sample, many areas cannot be released. Additional data are needed to decide onĀ  measures in the future. Reliable data should be obtained according to a representative sample. Sampling is currently not suitable for ensuring food safety. It is therefore desirable (for now) to test all wilderness meat before it is allowed for consumption.

A representative sample is needed for each floodplain. This is required to make reliable decisions on dioxins, DL-PCBs and PFAS in wilderness meat. BuRO describes elements that are important when designing a sampling strategy. These elements cover, for example, sample size, variation in sex of animals, variation between animals in one area and between animals in different areas.

According to BuRO, the probability of exceeding the legal limit is highest for the sum of dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs. It is unclear what the effect of flooding is on levelsfor longer periods. There is also uncertainty about the translatability of findings between different years. In addition, there is insufficient information on levels of contaminants in other grazers in floodplains.