International honey standards are specified in a European Honey Directive and in the Codex Alimentarius Standard for Honey, both of which are presently under revision. In this article, present knowledge on the different quality criteria is reviewed. The standard drafts include standards and methods for the determination of the following quality factors: moisture, ash, acidity, HMF, apparent reducing sugars, apparent sucrose, diastase activity and water-insoluble matter. International honey standards for fructose/glucose content, the sucrose content and electrical conductivity are proposed. Also the use of other quality factors, such as invertase activity, proline and specific rotation, used in many countries, is also discussed.

International audienc

The current pandemic caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led people to implement preventive measures, including surface disinfection and use of alcohol-based hand gel, in order to avoid viral transmission via fomites. However, the role of surface transmission is still debated. The present systematic review aims to summarize all the evidence on surface survival of coronaviruses infecting humans. The analysis of 18 studies showed the longest coronavirus survival time is 28 days at room temperature (RT) on different surfaces: polymer banknotes, vinyl, steel, glass, and paper banknotes. Concerning SARS-CoV-2 human infection from contaminated surfaces, dangerous viral load on surfaces for up to 21 days was determined on polymer banknotes, steel, glass and paper banknotes. For viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, the longest period of survival was 14 days, recorded on glass. Environmental conditions can affect virus survival, and indeed, low temperatures and low humidity support prolonged survival of viruses on contaminated surfaces independently of surface type. Furthermore, it has been shown that exposure to sunlight significantly reduces the risk of surface transmission. Although studies are increasingly investigating the topic of coronavirus survival, it is difficult to compare them, given the methodology differences. For this reason, it is advisable to define a reference working protocol for virus survival trials, but, as an immediate measure, there is also a need for further investigations of coronavirus survival on surfaces.

oxalic acid / varroosis / honeybee / honey / residues Tests on the use of oxalic acid for controlling varroosis (Takeuchi et al, 1983; Zjuman, 1987;Radetzki et al, 1994;Nanetti et al, 1995;Imdorf et al, 1997) Bee mortality was determined using 'underbasket traps' applied to each hive (Accorti, 1994).The mean efficacy of the three treatments with oxalic acid was 95% (± 7.39%) (

Adulteration by addition of bovine milk to water buffalo milk employed for mozzarella cheese production is often observed. Water buffalo milk and mozzarella cheese were analysed by matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry in order to achieve their rapid and accurate characterization and to evaluate possible fraudulence in mozzarella cheese production. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) is the causative agent of paratuberculosis [Johne's disease (JD)], a chronic disease that causes substantial economic losses in the dairy cattle industry. The long incubation period means clinical signs are visible in animals only after years, and some cases remain undetected because of the subclinical manifestation of the disease. Considering the complexity of JD pathogenesis, animals can be classified as infected, infectious, or affected. The major limitation of currently available diagnostic tests is their failure in detecting infected non-infectious animals. The present study aimed to identify metabolic markers associated with infected and infectious stages of JD. Direct analysis in real time coupled with high resolution mass spectrometry (DART-HRMS) was, hence, applied in a prospective study where cohorts of heifers and cows were followed up annually for 2–4 years. The animals' infectious status was assigned based on a positive result of both serum ELISA and fecal PCR, or culture. The same animals were retrospectively assigned to the status of infected at the previous sampling for which all JD tests were negative. Stored sera from 10 infected animals and 17 infectious animals were compared with sera from 20 negative animals from the same herds. Two extraction protocols and two (-/+) ionization modes were tested. The three most informative datasets out of the four were merged by a mid-level data fusion approach and submitted to partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). Compared to the MAP negative subjects, metabolomic analysis revealed the m/z signals of isobutyrate, dimethylethanolamine, palmitic acid, and rhamnitol were more intense in infected animals. Both infected and infectious animals showed higher relative intensities of tryptamine and creatine/creatinine as well as lower relative abundances of urea, glutamic acid and/or pyroglutamic acid. These metabolic differences could indicate altered fat metabolism and reduced energy intake in both infected and infectious cattle. In conclusion, DART-HRMS coupled to a mid-level data fusion approach allowed the molecular features that identified preclinical stages of JD to be teased out.

No abstract

This paper reports a simple and reliable mass spectrometry hyphenated chromatographic method for ochratoxin A determination in hard cheese. The method is based on a simple extraction using an acetonitrile:water (84:16, v/v) solution acidified with 2.5% acetic acid. After a defatting step with n-hexane, the extract was directly analysed by LC-MS/MS without any further clean-up step. The method showed good linearity and specificity, and it was in-house validated in the range of 1-16 μg/kg, resulting in 93.75% mean overall recovery (confidence interval 1.36%) and 3.42% coefficient of variatioin (CV). The analytical performances were also satisfactory in terms of sensitivity (limit of quantification = 1 μg/kg); although no legal limits have been set up for cheese, this value is consistent with the tolerances fixed for other regulated foods. Preliminary results on 40 commercial samples of grated hard cheese are presented.