New version of the Pesticide Residue Intake Model (PRIMo) available for trial. Full endorsement for use expected in 2025.
New version of the Pesticide Residue Intake Model (PRIMo) available for trial. Full endorsement for use expected in 2025.
PRIMo is a pesticide evaluation tool developed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It is used in dietary risk assessments of EU maximum residues levels (MRLs) for pesticides in food, or proposals for MRLs. It is a calculation model that estimates the chronic and acute dietary consumer exposure to pesticide residues. The most recent update of this model, version 4 is now available for trial (https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/applications/pesticides/tools ), but it has not been endorsed for use yet and applicants should continue to use the previous version 3.1 for the time being. It is estimated that the latest version will be formally endorsed sometime in 2025.
PRIMo 4 includes some very significant changes. First of all, the model will move from the Excel‐based versions to an online web‐application which will be more user friendly. There will still be, however, several modalities for data input, including input from Excel. In fact, the outcome of the exposure estimations and input data can be exported to MS Excel tables, which allows for further data processing and re-use of the data in future sessions. An interesting new feature are the graphical outputs which are now integrated to provide a visualisation of the results, which can also be downloaded as part of a summary report.
The dietary exposure to pesticide residues can be calculated both in raw primary commodities (RPC, e.g., tomato) and associated raw primary commodity derivatives (RPCD, e.g., tomato sauce), applying processing factors for the RPCDs. Moreover, the new version introduces a novel approach by using individual consumption data from EFSA’s Comprehensive Food Consumption Database, without compromising the compatibility with the food classification of Annex I of Regulation (EC) 396/2005 (Matrix codes). Foods reported as consumed are now disaggregated into their ingredients and converted into RPC equivalents using the EFSA RPC model, enabling more detailed exposure assessments. Using the new consumption database means that additional countries and population classes are being represented in the exposure assessment.
The model outputs are also changing; chronic exposure estimates can now be obtained for both mean exposure and highest reliable percentile (HRP) exposure, per country, survey and population class, and acute exposure calculations account for individual consumption and body weight.
The full technical report which was published on the EFSA Journal on the 9th of August 2024 can be viewed here: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/supporting/pub/EN-8990. If you need regulatory support with Plant Protection Products authorisations in the UK or the EU, please contact the experts in Kerona Scientific at info@kerona.ie