Industry officials are working with the European Commission to safeguard this year's Indian table grape campaign, after the discovery of Chlormequat chloride residues in grapes supplied to Lidl in Sweden threw into doubt the future of the Asian country's multi-million euro grape export deal in Europe.
The move is aimed at establishing at EU level an official import tolerance level in line with Indian Good Agriculture Practice.
At present, in the absence of a dossier being available to support the determination of a specific MRL, EU legislation provides a default level of 0.05ppm for the substance, which is used by Indian growers on grape trees not to combat disease but to replicate winter conditions.
According to industry association Freshfel Europe, the issue at hand has been caused not by the fruit exceeding safety limits and placing consumers at risk, but rather an oversight in terms of the rules currently in place for regulating pesticide residues.
Contrary to a press report in India's Business Standard, which was yesterday regurgitated by a number of fresh produce industry websites, EU authorities and individual member states have not halted any containers of table grapes from India.
'However,' explained Philippe Binard, general secretary of Freshfel Europe, 'routine samples taken at trade level in recent days reported that some consignments had traces above the detection level 0.05ppm without however exceeding any threshold level which could expose European consumers to risk.'
With European legislation on MRLs providing only this default level for Chlormequat on grapes, the absence of a specific import tolerance based on Good Agriculture Practice was the sticking point, rather than any threat to consumer safety, he insisted: 'No dossier for EU MRL or import tolerance was ever submitted.'
Unlike the 400 or so active substances which are regularly monitored in Europe and covered by the EU's harmonised pesticide residue scheme, there is currently no official maximum residue level for Chlormequat chloride within the EU as until now it has not been known to the European authorities.
As a result, the compound is automatically subject to the EU's default base detection level, set at 0.05ppm, even though individual MRLs set for Chlormequat chloride in other parts of the world are significantly higher.
Mr Binard said Freshfel was working closely with the EU and industry stakeholders to rectify what he described as 'an awkward administrative and regulatory situation'.
'Freshfel underlines that possible residues found pose absolutely no threat to food safety and remains in contact with the European Commission,' he added. 'We hope to have clarification of this matter shortly, namely with a statement from EFSA.'
Indian exporters have shipped a total of 4,200 containers of table grapes to the EU this season, with around 1,000 containers sold up until last week.
The remaining 3,000 containers are now either waiting in a number of European ports or on ships bound for Europe. Payment has already been made for most of the fruit.
