Raw nuts and even roasted nuts can be contaminated with aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are carcinogenic, highly toxic to humans and farm animals. Therefore many countries have adopted regulations to limit exposure to aflatoxins.

To detect aflatoxins in peanuts and tree nuts a simple and rapid screening method was developed by R-Biopharm. The new method can be used with the currently available RIDASCREEN® FAST Aflatoxin test (R5202) and is applicable for the quantitative analysis (range of 1.7 to 45 ppb) in hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, cashew nuts, peanuts, pistachios and macadamia nuts.

The detection limit (LOD) is less than 1.7 ppb in hazelnuts, peanuts and macadamia nuts. For pistachios, almonds and cashew nuts the LOD values ranged from 1.78 to 2.2 ppb. For walnuts a LOD of approximately 8 ppb was determined. In all tested matrices, the recovery rate was in the range of 105 ± 20%.