Overview
EFSA reviewed a notification to sell fresh Wolffia arrhiza and Wolffia globosa plants, grown in an indoor LED-lit vertical farm with deionized water, as a traditional food in the EU, and raised no safety objections. The report prints the notifier’s analyses of dried batches for mercury, arsenic, cadmium, lead and chromium, and for minerals. The manifest note that the abstract names no metals is correct for the abstract only; the full report has the heavy metal table.
Key numbers
- Lead: below 0.100 mg/kg in four batches; 0.027 and 0.079 mg/kg in two batches with lower reporting limits (Table 1.d).
- Arsenic and cadmium below the reporting limit in all six batches (< 0.100 or < 0.010 and < 0.050 or < 0.010 mg/kg) (Table 1.d).
- Mercury: < 0.020 mg/kg in four batches and 0.008 mg/kg in two (Table 1.d).
- Manganese 541 to 827 mg/kg in the dried samples (Table 1.c).
Methods (brief)
Fresh plants were dried at 40 °C for 24 hours and analyzed; residual moisture was 7 to 11%. The report gives no analytical method, instrument or quality control details. Values are on the dried test sample, while the product is sold fresh at about 96.5% moisture.
Evidence Fitness
A handful of producer batches from one controlled indoor farm, reported by a regulator, with no method description. Most toxic-element results are below reporting limits. It measures Wolffia (a water lentil) directly, so it supports the water-lentils page, but the dried-sample basis must not be read as a fresh-weight value.