common monitoring on pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables
1. The project
2. Objective
3. Procedure
4. List of active ingredients
5. Findings code
6. Laboratories
7. Costs
8. Cooperation with other quality standards and systems
9. Database
10. GS1 standards
11. GPC
12. Contact persons
The German trading companies Dohle, EDEKA, Globus, METRO (Real, METRO Cash & Carry, Kaufhof), Norma, REWE and tegut… operate a joint pesticide residue monitoring system for fruit & vegetables that is managed by the company HDE Trade Services GmbH (HTS GmbH), a 100% subsidiary of the Handelsverbandes Deutschland e.V. (German Trade Association).
fruitmonitoring.com serves to review compliance with the allowed residue limits for pesticides during the production of fruit & vegetables and aims to help recognise undesirable developments with respect to the use of pesticides more quickly thereby improving the quality of the fruit & vegetables in the long term.
In the past, the trading companies commissioned individual laboratory examinations of the fruit & vegetable deliveries and also requested suppliers to undertake examinations. In the future, the results of these examinations will be entered into the joint database at HDE to allow an overview of the pesticide levels of the fruit & vegetables for all participating trade companies. HDE Trade Service GmbH will continually analyse these results. The analyses will be carried out anonymously according to product, product group, origin and active agents and will be supplied to the trading companies and the producers to allow them to recognise the residue trends in the products in the origin regions at an early stage.
The participating trade companies have agreed upon a joint list of active agents, i.e. a list of pesticides for which tests are carried out; this is continuously reviewed. The list of active agents will form the basis for all examinations commissioned by the trade companies in the future. This means that a very high level of comparability of the individual examination results can be achieved. Additional individual examinations by the individual trading companies for further active agents are not affected by this.
The participating trade companies have also agreed on a joint findings code. In this way, the anonymous examination results can be compared to facilitate a generic analysis.
All laboratories that would like to take specimens for the participating trade companies and their fruit & vegetable suppliers in the future must satisfy minimum standards. These include accreditation to EN/ISO/IEC 17025 in the country of the analysing laboratory and the regular participation in round robin tests. Participation in round robin tests of other systems and standards are recognised. The results of the round robin tests need to be submitted to the HDE Trade Services GmbH at regular intervals.
Also, every laboratory needs to conclude a contract with HDE Trade Services GmbH, Berlin in which it recognises fruitmonitoring.com regulations.
The database costs are allocated to the individual samples. The laboratory must pay HDE Trade Service GmbH a fee of 5,-- € for every sample result that is entered. The fee is required to finance the IT infrastructure and the administration of fruitmonitoring.com. The laboratory is free to pass on this charge to their customers who gave them the order to place the results into fruitmonitoring.com.
8. Cooperation with other quality standards and systems
fruitmonitoring.com offers cooperation with all systems and standards. If tolerance values of systems and standards are exceeded among the participants, the respective system and standards bodies are sent a message informing them that nonconformities have been established at one of their system or standard participants. This means that the system or the standard body has the possibility to check the affected system or standard participant and rectify the nonconformity. A prerequisite for the cooperation is of course that the participants of the other quality standards and systems agree to the cooperation.
fruitmonitoring.com uses the web-based solution from convivo GmbH because it works independently of the individual market participants and therefore offers a high level of independence. The laboratories enter their results into fruitmonitoring.com database via this platform.
10. GS1 standards
GLN (Global Location Number)
Every participant in fruitmonitoring.com system must have a unique GLN (Global Location Number).
This number is issued by the GS1 organisation and is unique across the world. For further information, please contact the GS1 organisation in the country where the respective fruitmonitoring.com participant is located. There is also more information available on the following websites: www.gs1.com and www.gs1-germany.de
The GS1 complete package is available in Germany for obtaining a Global Location Number and enabling fast access to the GS1 system.
The international standard "global product classification" (GPC) that was agreed upon in 2010 is highly important for fruitmonitoring.com. All sample results must be identified with the GPC to guarantee clear allocation of the sample results to the products or product groups. Also, the GS1 organisation provides more information on the websites www.gs1.com and www.gs1-germany.de.
Katerina Fiß
Project Manager
HDE Trade Services GmbH
Am Weidendamm 1 A, 10117 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 72 62 50-93
Fax: +49 (0)30 72 62 50-79
Internet: www.fruitmonitoring.com
Mail:
Managing Director: Stephan Tromp
AG Charlottenburg HRB 84691
Tax No.: 37/464/20476
VAT-N°: DE815258694
