Projectname:
Aflatoxines in Hazelnuts (preliminary study)
Workgroup: Chocolate technology
Spokesman of IVLV-Project team: Ms Chr. Schuster-Salas, Alfred Ritter
Research institution: Fraunhofer IVV, Freising
Scientific guidance: Dr. Klaus Rieblinger
Financing: IVLV
Project duration: 2003
Hazelnuts as economically important processing products for the sweet goods industry are season products, which are only once in the year after the harvest freshly for the order. It is to be guaranteed by suitable measures that for the processing industry up to the next harvest raw commodity with quality conditions is available, which can be processed to durable and high-quality final products.
Nuts can be stricken by mould fungi. As extremely critical are thereby so called Aflatoxin forming microorganisms. Aflatoxin is formed by the mould fungi, Aspergillus flavus and parasiticus. High contents occur particularly in food, which originates from warm, damp areas, since the mould fungi have there optimal growth conditions.
The objective of this screening project is to show possible correlation between content of Aflatoxins and the nut size at calibrated raw hazelnuts of the harvest 1998 until 2001 (resetting samples of the finished AiF-FEI-project are still available). The climatic data of the Hazelnut-garden in Turkey will be controlled as well as the observation of the content of Aflatoxins within the growth period (2003).
