Emerging fusariotoxins, mainly enniatins (ENNs) and beauvericin (BEA), are secondary toxic metabolites produced by Fusarium spp. and are widely distributed contaminants of cereals and by-products. Mycotoxin contamination in these products supposes an important risk to feed supply security in the feed industry due to the common use of cereals in feed formulations. Hence, continuous monitoring of both raw materials and feed mixtures is highly recommended as stated by sanitary authorities. Therefore, an analytical procedure based on liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and an acetonitrile-based extraction followed by a d-SPE (QuEChERS) step for the simultaneous determination of emerging Fusarium mycotoxins was in-house validated and successfully applied to raw materials (n = 39) and feed manufactured with them (n = 48). The analytical method was validated following the European guidelines and satisfactory results were obtained. Both raw materials and complete feedstuffs showed mycotoxin contamination at incidences of 18% and 92%, respectively. ENN B was the most commonly found mycotoxin in the analyzed samples at concentrations up to several tens of µg/kg. On the other hand, the co-occurrence of mycotoxins was observed in 47% of samples, ENN B and BEA being the most common combination. These results highlight the necessity to take a vigilant attitude to monitor the occurrence of contaminants in raw materials and feedstuffs throughout the manufacturing chain and storage.
Keywords: beauvericin; co-occurrence; enniatins; feed; mycotoxins; raw materials.