Plums

Completeness scorecard

Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.

Plums (Prunus domestica, European plum; Prunus salicina, Japanese plum) are stone fruits grown commercially across temperate climates: California (US), China (the world’s largest producer), Serbia, Romania, Turkey, France, and Italy. The current corpus loads 2 directly-routed sources: Lee 2023 South Korean fresh fruits 7-metal panel covering plums within the broader survey (n=207 across multiple fruits, lee2023-south-korea-fresh-fruits-seven-metals) and Sembratowicz 2010 Polish domestic fruits nitrate-Pb-Cd panel covering plums (n=108, sembratowicz2010-nitrates-pb-cd-lublin-fruits). Plums sit at the lower-middle of the fresh-fruit category for Pb-and-Cd; dried plums (prunes) carry concentrated metals on a dry-weight basis through the drying step.

Why this commodity accumulates heavy metals

Plums take metals from soil through root uptake into the fruit-bearing tissue, and atmospheric deposition onto the fruit surface during the growing cycle. Prunus species are moderate Cd accumulators relative to apples and pears; the thicker skin of plums provides some buffering against atmospheric Pb deposition into the consumed flesh, with the skin carrying more Pb than the flesh. The Korean Lee 2023 dataset characterised seven metals (tAs, Sb, Ba, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb) across 207 fresh-fruit samples including plums and confirmed the moderate-Cd, low-Pb pattern for the category (lee2023-south-korea-fresh-fruits-seven-metals). The Polish Sembratowicz 2010 Lublin-area dataset covered 108 fruit samples and provided Pb-Cd baseline for European-market plums (sembratowicz2010-nitrates-pb-cd-lublin-fruits). Drying (the production of prunes / dried plums) concentrates metals on a dry-weight basis by 4-5× through moisture removal; this is a basis change rather than contamination.

Heavy metal contamination profile

Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.

Ranges by source, region, and variety

The Korean Lee 2023 dataset is the largest single-jurisdiction recent fresh-fruit dataset covering plums, with 207 samples across the 7-metal panel and the broader fresh-fruit category (lee2023-south-korea-fresh-fruits-seven-metals). The Polish Sembratowicz 2010 work (n=108 domestic fruits including plums) provides European-market baseline with the additional nitrate context (sembratowicz2010-nitrates-pb-cd-lublin-fruits). Origin-country pattern: Chinese, Serbian, US-California, and EU commercial plums carry broadly comparable metal profiles per the routing-layer-accessible corpus. Variety-level pattern: European plums (Prunus domestica, used for prunes and culinary plums) and Japanese plums (Prunus salicina, the dominant fresh-eating commercial variety in the US market) are not separately characterised on heavy metals in the loaded corpus. Prune-specific data (concentrated by drying) is implicit through the dry-weight basis but the loaded corpus does not provide dried-plum-specific values.

Processing effects

Drying fresh plums to prunes concentrates metals on a dry-weight basis by 4-5× through moisture removal (fresh plum ~85% moisture to prune ~30% moisture). Pitting before drying does not change the per-mass load. Some commercial prune production uses sulfur-dioxide treatment for color preservation; this is a non-metal-contamination consideration but worth flagging. Plum jam and plum preserves (concentrated through cooking and sugar addition) carry the parent fruit’s metal load at the concentration ratio of the cooking step. Plum juice extracts soluble metals; per-serving exposure tracks the juice-yield ratio.

Ingredient-derivative risk

Fresh plums (whole or pitted) represent the baseline. Prunes (dried plums) carry the 4-5× concentrated metal load on a dry-weight basis. Prune juice (the liquid extract used for digestive applications) carries soluble metals from the parent fruit. Plum preserves, plum sauce (used in Asian cuisine), and plum-flavoured products carry the parent fruit’s metal load proportional to the inclusion ratio. Dried-plum-and-prune-based baby food applications carry the prune metal load directly to infant exposure.

Mitigation options

Sourcing levers

Source from production regions with documented soil-and-water screening. Chinese, Serbian, Romanian, US-California, and EU commercial supply chains are broadly equivalent. For brand-controlled-supply operations, single-orchard sourcing enables soil-and-water transparency.

Agronomic levers

Soil pH management around 6.5 reduces Cd bioavailability. Avoidance of phosphate fertilisers with elevated Cd impurity reduces ongoing Cd loading.

Processing levers

Pitting and washing do not significantly affect internalised metals. Drying is a basis change, not contamination.

Formulation levers

For products using plums or prunes as an ingredient, the inclusion ratio caps per-serving exposure. Substitution with other dried fruits (raisins, dates) does not meaningfully change the metal profile.

Testing and QC levers

Lot-level ICP-MS testing for Pb (detection floor ≤ 5 ppb fresh-weight), Cd (≤ 1 ppb fresh-weight), and the broader fruit-relevant panel is appropriate.

Packaging and storage levers

Standard food-grade packaging does not contribute to plum or prune metal load. For canned plum products, modern fully-welded steel cans with food-grade interior coatings are appropriate.

Regulatory limits that apply

The Codex Alimentarius General Standard CXS 193-1995 applies the general fresh-fruit Pb maximum of 0.10 mg/kg fresh weight and Cd at 0.05 mg/kg for fresh fruit (general). The EU Regulation 2023/915 applies the same fresh-fruit Pb limit of 0.10 mg/kg and Cd at 0.020 mg/kg for fresh fruit. For prunes (dried plums), the EU 2023/915 applies a dried-fruit limit framework that allows for the dry-weight basis conversion. The FDA has not set plum-specific action levels.

Sources

Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.