On June 24, 2015, the European Food Safety Authority ("EFSA") issued an opinion on the presence of chlorates in foods. Chlorates can appear in foods from the use of chlorinated water during their processing and from disinfection of food-processing equipment. Currently most of the national enforcement authorities apply a default maximum residue limit ("MRL") of 0.01 mg of chlorates/kg of food, which is generally applicable to traces of unapproved pesticides. In practice, however, this limit is often exceeded. In the aforementioned Opinion, EFSA concluded that consuming foods with an MRL of 0.7 mg/kg would not exceed an acute reference dose for chlorates in foods and thus would not cause health concerns. This Opinion provides support to the European Commission ("EC") in a potential future adoption of a MRL of 0.7 mg/kg of chlorates in foods.
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