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Sampling diced almonds for aflatoxin
Author(s) -
Schade J. E.,
King A. D.,
Mackey B. E.,
Halbrook W. U.,
Fuller G.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
journal of the american oil chemists' society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.512
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1558-9331
pISSN - 0003-021X
DOI - 10.1007/bf02672957
Subject(s) - aflatoxin , sampling (signal processing) , meal , mathematics , food science , biology , computer science , filter (signal processing) , computer vision
To ensure that diced almonds meet the current FDA guideline limit for total aflatoxin, it is necessary to have a sampling plant that will allow representative sampling with defined precision‐i.e., with confidence limits on the average aflatoxin found. A sequential sampling plan using 4.54‐kg samples of diced almonds or 150‐g samples of meal by‐product (fines screened from diced nuts during production) was constructed with data from a study of aflatoxin distribution among samples of 2 selected lots of almonds. These 2 lots of whole nuts, estimated to have 400 and 25 ppb aflatoxin, were diced and boxed with normal processing equipment and procedures to approximate the distribution of aflatoxin in the product during commercial production. With a square root trans‐formation of the data from 4.54‐kg samples of diced nuts, the aflatoxin in samples of both lots approximated a normal distribu‐tion and the within‐lot variances were not significantly different, which allowed the statistical plan described. A supplemental study was made of aflatoxin distribution in the meal by‐product. The lack of a significant difference between the results for diced nuts and those for the corresponding meal suggests that diced almonds can be monitored for aflatoxin indirectly by sampling the meal, which will allow the use of fewer analyses of 150‐g samples of less expen‐sive product to reach a decision.