Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1987 — Maximum Levels of Nickel in Certain Foodstuffs

Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1987, adopted at Brussels on 30 July 2024 and published in the Official Journal L series on 31 July 2024, amends Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915 by inserting a complete nickel entry into the contaminants maximum-level framework for food. It is the binding instrument that, for the first time, sets harmonised European Union maximum levels for nickel in food. The legal basis is Article 2(3) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 315/93, and the regulation was signed for the Commission by President Ursula von der Leyen.

This is the operative maximum-level instrument that earlier HMI pages had to infer from recital 7 of the companion monitoring act, 907. The monitoring recommendation (adopted 22 March 2024) predates this regulation by four months; its recital 7 reads in the present perfect (“maximum levels have been established for nickel in various foods in Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915”) because the two instruments were drafted as one legislative package, but the binding maximum levels were not actually inserted into Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2023/915 until this amending regulation was adopted.

What it does (Article 1)

Article 1 amends Regulation (EU) 2023/915 in two ways:

1. Article 10(1) (transitional measures) gains two new points fixing the dates of application for the nickel levels: point (o) sets 1 July 2025 for the nickel maximum levels in entry 3.6 of Annex I with the exception of points 3.6.11.1 to 3.6.11.5, and point (p) sets 1 July 2026 for the nickel maximum levels in points 3.6.11.1 to 3.6.11.5 (the cereal rows). Food lawfully placed on the market before those dates may remain on the market until its date of minimum durability or use-by date (recital 11).
2. Annex I is amended to add a new entry 3.6 Nickel to Section 3 (“Metals and other elements”).

Article 2 provides that the regulation enters into force on the twentieth day following publication and that it shall apply from 1 July 2025 (subject to the deferred cereal date above).

The scientific basis the Commission cited (recitals 3, 6, 7, 8)

The recitals recite the European Food Safety Authority’s nickel work and conclude that maximum levels are warranted (EFSA 2020):

• Recital 6: on 24 September 2020 the Authority adopted an update of the risk assessment of nickel in food and drinking water.
• Recital 7: nickel may cause both chronic and acute effects. On the basis of the critical chronic effect of pregnancy loss, a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of 13 µg Ni/kg bw was established, and the TDI is exceeded in toddlers, in children between 36 months and 10 years old, and in some cases in infants. The critical acute effect is eczematous flare-up reactions in nickel-sensitised humans (about 15 % of the population); the lowest-observed-adverse-effect level is 4.3 µg Ni/kg bw and a margin of exposure of 30 or higher is needed, which “is not achieved for the mean and 95th percentile exposure.”
• Recital 8 (verbatim): “Maximum levels for nickel in food should therefore be set to ensure a high level of human health protection.”
• Recital 9: Regulation (EU) 2023/915 should therefore be amended accordingly.

The maximum levels (Annex I, new entry 3.6 Nickel)

Values are as written in the regulation (mg/kg). Bases follow the row remarks: vegetable rows apply to the wet weight after washing and separation of the edible part; tree-nut and oilseed rows apply to the edible part and do not apply to material destined for crushing/oil refining where the pressed residue is not placed on the market as food; infant, baby-food and processed-cereal rows apply to the product as placed on the market.

Compound and processed foods that are not themselves a listed category are handled under Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2023/915 (ingredient proportions, concentration/dilution and processing factors, analytical LOQ), not by a single finished-product nickel level.

Relevance to the Heavy Metal Index

This regulation establishes the EU finished-product nickel maximum levels recorded on EU Regulation 2023/915 maximum levels for contaminants in food and Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1987 — maximum levels of nickel in certain foodstuffs. It is the regulatory counterpart to Nickel and the binding downstream uptake of EFSA 2020. The companion monitoring instrument, 907, gathers occurrence data for the foods (fish and other seafood, ready-to-eat soups, coffee, tea, food supplements, and others) for which data were insufficient to set maximum levels in this regulation.

Verification notes

Ingested 2026-06-22 from the Official Journal PDF (raw/Manual Resourcing/OJ_L_202401987_EN_nickel-maximum-levels.pdf, sha256 41242a9d…, 7 pages), read in full: recitals 1–12, Articles 1–2, and the complete Annex (entry 3.6.1–3.6.16). The maximum-level values and application dates above are transcribed verbatim from the Annex; the WebFetch small-model preview of this table was garbled and was discarded in favour of the primary PDF. ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1987/oj. This ingest resolves the open provenance item flagged on Commission Recommendation (EU) 2024/907 of 22 March 2024 on the monitoring of nickel in food (the exact amending instrument and its application dates are now primary-confirmed).

Page history

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