EFSA recently published the report The 2024 European Union report on pesticide residues in food published. The report was adopted on 25 March 2026 and highlights official controls on residues of plant protection products in food over 2024.
The main message seems reassuring: most products examined comply with legal standards. But those who read further see that products from countries outside the EU are five times more likely to be non-compliant than EU products. Multiple residues are common. And in a growing proportion of samples, the origin is not known.
For any business owner who buys, processes or sells food, this is relevant.
Within the national monitoring programmes, 86,449 samples were examined. For products produced within the EU, 1.0% was non-compliant. For products from countries outside the EU, it was 5.2%.
Origin | MRL exceeded | Actual non-compliant |
Produced in the EU | 2,1% | 1,0% |
Produced outside the EU | 8,3% | 5,2% |
Origin unknown | 1,2% | 0,5% |
Non-compliant means that the legal maximum value is exceeded even after accounting for measurement uncertainty. Enforcement measures may then follow.
Turkey stands out. In samples of Turkish origin, 14.8% was non-compliant. Pomegranates, lemons and tomatoes stand out in particular. Some product-country combinations from Morocco and South Africa also require continued attention, according to EFSA.
Origin | Products or combinations specifically mentioned by EFSA |
Turkey | Pomegranates, lemons and tomatoes |
Morocco | Paprika including clofentezine, formetanate and tebufenpyrad; melon with thiabendazole |
South Africa | Grapefruit with glufosinate |
This means that buying without visibility into origin, supplier and cultivation history is becoming less and less defensible.
It would be too easy to point to imports alone. Within the EU, abnormalities are also found. EFSA mentions broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, table grapes and chicken eggs, among others.
Product from the EU | Substances or concerns |
Broccoli | Flonicamid |
Mushrooms | Cyromazine and thiamethoxam |
Pepper | Ethephon and iprovalicarb |
Table grapes | Cypermethrin and formetanate |
Chicken eggs | Copper |
EFSA also calls attention to possible inappropriate use of non-approved substances such as nicotine and glufosinate within the EU.
The conclusion is clear: European procurement demonstrably lowers risk, but there are areas of concern here too.
A product can meet the legal standards and still contain several residues at the same time. In practice, the MRL, the legal maximum value, is assessed mainly on a substance-by-substance basis. And that gives a distorted picture because consumers eat whole products.
Multiple residues were found in 78% of the table grapes examined. In grapefruit it was 73.5% and in bananas 66.1%. In one sample of sweet pepper from Turkey, as many as 17 different pesticides were found.
This does not automatically mean that these products are harmful. It does mean that saying “everything stays within the norm” does not sufficiently answer the question of what different substances do together.
EFSA is working on cumulative assessments for substances but the day-to-day practice of control and enforcement is still lagging behind.
Interestingly, EFSA also included bovine fat in the European monitoring programme. In the case of bovine fat, meat could also be sampled if necessary.
Deviation rates are low but moving up:
Year | MRL exceedance in bovine fat |
2018 | 0,10% |
2021 | 0,05% |
2024 | 0,20% |
Beef fat is not at the top of the list. Nevertheless, inclusion is substantively relevant. Some substances may enter products of animal origin via feed, environment or chain load. Fat deserves attention here because fat-soluble substances can behave differently from substances that are rapidly excreted.
In organic livestock products, residue pressure is not necessarily lower, mainly because copper is more frequently found there; copper is allowed in organic farming and is also used as an animal feed additive and fertiliser.
For meat companies, this is a signal to look beyond microbiology, veterinary medicines and origin labelling. The feed chain and chemical residues also play an important role.
In 12.4% of the samples, the country of origin was unknown. In 2023, it was still 4%.
This is worrying. As soon as batches are mixed, repackaged, cut up or redelivered through different traders, visibility of origin becomes blurred. This is precisely when risk-oriented purchasing becomes difficult.
Transparency is becoming increasingly important, but no one can promise a completely residue-free chain. Not even for organic products. Out of 5,939 organic samples, 80.4% contained no quantifiable residues and 0.4% was non-compliant, compared to 1.8% non-compliant across all products surveyed combined: so organic scores demonstrably better, but is not residue-free.
In short, transparent sourcing is becoming the basic requirement for credible food quality.
Source: https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.2903/j.efsa.2026.10054
