On July 14, the state services of External Health alerted the Department of Health about the entry into Catalonia of a shipment of watermelons – coming from Morocco – highly contaminated with a pesticide. The alert was given eleven days after the merchandise was distributed, since it went on sale on July 3 in Mercabarna. When the inspectors went to the big market and other distribution points, the batch had already been distributed. The company that made this acquisition (its name has not been released) imported 26,989 kilos of watermelons, which could not be located because they were destroyed.
The state services notified the Public Health Agency of Catalonia with delay of the detection of the loading of watermelons, according to the reconstruction of the facts offered by the Department of Health.
The batch contained residues of an insecticide (methomyl) at levels that exceeded 25 times the maximum limit of residues allowed in European legislation, according to the analyzes of a control by the External Health Service at the border point of Almeria. The incident would be classified as “serious” by the system for the rapid exchange of information on food (Rasff, by its acronym in English), which is coordinated by the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (Aesan), in contact with the EU and the autonomous communities.
After receiving the warning on July 14 from the border point of Almeria, the Public Health Agency of Catalonia immediately communicated the incident to the health authorities in Barcelona so that they could carry out the monitoring and withdrawal of the product.
“Both in Mercabarna and in other establishments, control actions were carried out”, notes the Department of Health. So, “it was verified that the Mercabarna company had received the goods on July 3” and that on July 14, when this market received the communication from the Administration, “it no longer had stocks of the product involved in the establishment”. In total, 26,989 kilos of watermelons were distributed, which were distributed among customers (12 in Catalonia, 1 in Madrid and 4 in France).
The operator of Mercabarna contacted its customers to warn them of the facts and to try to recover the products that had not yet been sold, in order to be able to destroy them. But customers reported that they no longer had the product in question.
For its part, the Department of Health reveals that Aesan published the notification on July 17, the date on which it was informed of the data that the border point of External Health in Almeria had already advanced (two weeks after the distribution of the food). Regarding this delay, a spokeswoman for Aesan told this newspaper that she did not know the reasons for the delay, although she pointed out that “Sanidad Exterior should have taken samples, and until the result is in, the product will not be withdrawn” .
The Public Health Agency has carried out several checks to find the watermelons in the places where the product is sold. And “for now, these official control actions confirm the non-existence of the product in the establishments”.
Fresh foods such as watermelon “are products that are consumed within a few days of purchase”, Health sources explain. Yes, commercial documentation and the related traceability of the batch in question were found, but no watermelon was found, therefore, “no control to take samples could be carried out”. There is also no evidence from the epidemiological surveillance services that anyone has been affected by having ingested this product. The same Aesan spokesman added that “the health toxicological reference limits were not exceeded”.
“You cannot frivolously minimize the non-compliance with the maximum limits of permitted pesticide residues”, points out Koldo Hernández, expert in monitoring pesticides from the organization Ecologistes en Acció.
