Evaluation of monitoring data on levels of ethyl carbamate in the years 2010-2012

Ethyl carbamate is a food processing contaminant classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2007 as "probably carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2A). A total of 2 399 analytical results on the occurrence of ethyl carbamate in the sampling years 2010-2012 from 11 Member States were extracted from the EFSA contaminant occurrence database and analysed. Data primarily pertained to the food group 'Spirits‘ (96 % of results), in particular the subgroup 'Spirits made from stone fruits‘ (81 % of results). Left-censored results (35 % of all results) were substituted by lower bound (LB), upper bound (UB) and middle bound (MB) values. The mean occurrence of ethyl carbamate in the different food groups covering the sampling period 2010-2012 was calculated as a MB estimate and range (MB (LB–UB)). The highest occurrence levels were found in 'Spirits made from stone fruits‘ (698 (672–723) μg/L) and in 'Spirits made from fruits other than stone fruits‘ (317 (298–335) μg/L). Relatively high mean occurrence values were also found in the food groups 'Spirits made from unspecified fruits‘, 'Spirits unspecified‘ and 'Liqueur‘; however, the source of their distillates was unspecified. The report also provides an overview of ethyl carbamate levels in 'Spirits made from stone fruits‘ and 'Spirits made from fruits other than stone fruits‘ across the three sampling years 2010-2012.