FSANZ 2008 - Cadmium in peanuts

Food Standards Australia New Zealand assessed Application A552, which proposed changing the maximum level for cadmium in peanuts in the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. The report includes international peanut cadmium occurrence data and dietary exposure modeling for Australia and New Zealand. This page records the occurrence and exposure tables as source evidence, while treating the maximum-level discussion as a source-reported regulatory context rather than an HMTc threshold proposal.

Key numbers

• Regulatory context in the source: the report states that the existing maximum level for cadmium in peanuts was 0.1 mg/kg, and that the preferred amendment was to increase it to 0.5 mg/kg. These are source-reported FSANZ regulatory values, not HMTc limits.
• Peanut cadmium concentration table: Table A1.1 reports China Total Diet Study 2000 peanuts with mean cadmium 0.087 mg/kg, lowest concentration 0.020 mg/kg, and highest concentration 0.239 mg/kg.
• Table A1.1 reports United States Total Diet Survey 1991-2004 peanuts with mean cadmium 0.057 mg/kg, lowest concentration 0.020 mg/kg, and highest concentration 0.117 mg/kg.
• Table A1.1 reports Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service 2001-2006 peanut cadmium test results with mean cadmium 0.090 mg/kg, lowest concentration 0.010 mg/kg, and highest concentration 0.410 mg/kg.
• Table A1.1 reports New Zealand Total Diet Survey 2003-2004 peanuts with mean cadmium 0.075 mg/kg, lowest concentration 0.028 mg/kg, and highest concentration 0.157 mg/kg.
• Dietary exposure setup: Section 4 reports that dietary exposures were modeled using peanuts at a baseline level of 0.04 mg/kg and at the proposed maximum level of 0.5 mg/kg.
• Baseline total-diet cadmium exposure: Table A3.1 reports mean all-respondent dietary exposures of 0.0009 - 0.0011 mg/kg bw/wk for Australians aged 2 years +, 0.0018 - 0.0024 mg/kg bw/wk for Australian children aged 2-6 years, and 0.0011 - 0.0013 mg/kg bw/wk for New Zealanders aged 15 years +.
• Proposed-ML total-diet cadmium exposure: Table A3.2 reports mean all-respondent dietary exposures of 0.0011 - 0.0013 mg/kg bw/wk for Australians aged 2 years +, 0.0022 - 0.0029 mg/kg bw/wk for Australian children aged 2-6 years, and 0.0012 - 0.0014 mg/kg bw/wk for New Zealanders aged 15 years +.
• Peanuts-only exposure at 0.5 mg/kg: Table A3.3 reports Australian 2 years + peanut consumers n=2986, mean all-respondent exposure 0.0002 mg/kg bw/wk, mean consumer exposure 0.0009 mg/kg bw/wk, and 90th percentile consumer exposure 0.0022 mg/kg bw/wk.
• Peanuts-only exposure at 0.5 mg/kg: Table A3.3 reports Australian 2-6 years peanut consumers n=308, mean all-respondent exposure 0.0005 mg/kg bw/wk, mean consumer exposure 0.0016 mg/kg bw/wk, and 90th percentile consumer exposure 0.0041 mg/kg bw/wk.
• Peanuts-only exposure at 0.5 mg/kg: Table A3.3 reports New Zealand 15 years + peanut consumers n=1046, mean all-respondent exposure 0.0001 mg/kg bw/wk, mean consumer exposure 0.0006 mg/kg bw/wk, and 90th percentile consumer exposure 0.0013 mg/kg bw/wk.
• Table A5.3 expresses peanuts-only exposure as a percentage of the source-cited PTWI: Australia 2 years + mean all respondents 3%, mean consumers 10%, 90th percentile consumers 30%; Australia 2-6 years mean all respondents 7%, mean consumers 20%, 90th percentile consumers 60%; New Zealand 15 years + mean all respondents 2%, mean consumers 8%, 90th percentile consumers 20%.

Methods (brief)

FSANZ sourced peanut cadmium concentration data from AQIS imported-food tests analyzed between October 2001 and October 2006, the USFDA Total Diet Study market baskets from 1991-1993 through 2004, the Chinese Total Diet Study 2000, and the New Zealand Total Diet Survey 2003/04. Dietary exposure was modeled for the Australian 1995 National Nutrition Survey and the 1997 New Zealand National Nutrition Survey using lower-bound/upper-bound cadmium concentration handling. The source reports total cadmium only and does not provide a single sample count for Table A1.1 concentration sources.

Implications

Certification (HMTc): This is A-tier regulatory and occurrence context for peanut and peanut-butter product families, especially for cadmium in raw/imported peanuts. The report’s proposed 0.5 mg/kg and existing 0.1 mg/kg values are regulatory maximum-level context from FSANZ and should not be rephrased as HMTc limits.

Courses: The source is useful for teaching how occurrence data, exposure modeling, and maximum-level policy can coexist in one agency report without being treated as the same evidence type.

App: The source can support peanut cadmium profiles with jurisdiction-aware context for Australia/New Zealand regulatory assessment and international peanut concentration inputs from China, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• cadmium
• peanuts
• peanut-butter
• peanut-oil
• peanuts
• peanut-butter

Verification notes

• PDF text was extracted with pdftotext -layout to /tmp/mfk_june8_559.txt; the title page, Executive Summary, Sections 4 and 7, Appendix 1, Tables A1.1, A3.1-A3.3, and A5.1-A5.3 were checked against this page.
• No DOI is printed in the extracted report. Title, Application A552, raw handle MFK_final-assessment-report-application-a552-cadmium, and candidate cite-key path wiki/sources/fsanz2008-cadmium-peanuts-assessment.md were checked before creation; no existing source page was found.
• Units are copied exactly as printed: peanut cadmium concentrations use mg/kg, exposure uses mg/kg bw/wk, and PTWI percentages are copied as % PTWI. No unit conversions were performed.
• Speciation: the report measures/models cadmium only; no species substitution issue is present.
• Brand firewall: the report discusses industry applicants and peanut suppliers, but Table A1.1 is country/source-level occurrence data and this source page does not attach a company or brand name to a contamination value.
• Frontmatter slugs were checked against docs/gpt-collaboration/taxonomy-snapshot.md; peanut-containing-foods is a matrix descriptor rather than a product or ingredient slug.

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.