Monica Olsen (National Food Agency of Sweden) Risk Benefit Assessment Roundtable of aflatoxin experts on “Building a multi-stakeholder approach to mitigate aflatoxin contamination of food and feed” Brussels, Monday 25th January 2016

2. Organization

3. Swedish National Food Agency,
areas of responsibility and
competence
NFA is the competent authority in Sweden for organizing
official controls in the food chain including preparation and
distribution of water intended for human consumption. NFA
is also the authority responsible for informing public on
nutrition, healthy dietary habits, and fair practices in the food
trade. The agency has adopted risk analysis as working
principles in the area of its responsibilities and risk and
benefit assessments are conducted as basis for management
and for communication of risks with the public.
The agency is the Swedish focal point for Codex Alimentarius
and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). NFA is
appointed by the Government to be the national reference
laboratory (NRL) within 23 areas in chemical and
microbiological analysis in food and a partner of the network
of reference laboratories in the EU.

4. Sweden’s policy for
global development
In December 2003 the Swedish Parliament
adopted a new policy for global
development. Its objective is equitable and
sustainable global development and it
encompasses all policy areas. The policy
both aims to support the developing
countries in their specific challenges,
promote synergies between policy areas
and handle factors both in Sweden and in
the EU that restrain a positive
development in developing countries.

5. The National Food Agency in
global development
cooperation
NFA is committed to cooperate with national and
international partners in the process to
implement reforms in receiver countries in order
to facilitate international market access and to
develop food safety systems in line with EU and
international standards.
The global development cooperation at NFA is
coordinated by a group consisting of one
member from each division:
Research and Scientific Support: Monica Olsen
Food Control: Torbjörn Axelsson
Strategic Development and Support: Carmina Ionescu

6. Some examples of National
Food Agency in global
development cooperation
 Advanced International Training Programme in the Field
of Quality Infrastructure for Food Safety
 Training courses in Quality Assurance for Food Chemical
Laboratories.
 Training courses in Food Mycology.
 WHO/FAO pilot course: Basic awareness of microbial risk
assessment.
 Participations as scientific advisors and in project
leadership, concerning prevention of mycotoxin
formation in food commodities.
 Participation in training courses in compilation of food
composition data and dietary surveys in collaboration
with FAO and WHO Europe.
 Partnership Cooperation Program between Georgian
National Food Agency and Swedish Board of Agriculture
and NFA to build food inspection capacity in order to fulfil
“Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with
EU”.

7. Testing for moulds and mycotoxins, including aflatoxins
 Extensive experience of quantification of toxin-producing mould
species in food and raw material with both traditional, culture-
based methods, and modern methods like real-time PCR, as
basis for risk identification and risk management
 The laboratory produces reference material and proficiency
tests which include moulds
 Validation of methods for chemical residues analysis, including
mycotoxins
NFA expertise in relation to mitigate
aflatoxin contamination of food and feed

8. Aflatoxin prevention
Safenut (STDF-project) – collaboration with CIRAD (FR)
 Scientific coordinator in the STDF (N0. 114) project “Validation and
transfer to the key stakeholders of a sustainable and effective aflatoxin
management system in the Brazil nut production chain for recovering and
consolidating export markets, particularly in Europe”. 2006-06-01 to 2008-
11-30
FAO (TCP-project)
 FAO consultancy in the TCP project: TCP/IRA/3104: Monitoring,
Prevention and Control of Aflatoxin
Contamination in Iranian Pistachio Nuts.
April –May 2009 and in Sep-Oct 2009.
NFA expertise

9. Raising awareness
 The National Food Agency guides Swedish consumers towards healthy dietary habits.
Our recommendations and communication, based on the latest scientific evidence,
support consumers in their everyday life, for example when shopping, feeding their
children and cooking.
 An important part of the NFA’s work includes the estimation of levels of hazardous
substances which consumers are exposed to as well as intake of nutrients through
the diet.
 Human biomonitoring allows monitoring exposure in human population with a focus
on an early warning of increased exposure to toxic substances, as well as on cases of
a possible threat/crisis. It might be used to monitor the exposure recurrently as well
as in case of threat/crisis and also to detect exposures to “new” unexpected toxic
agents in human population.
NFA expertise

10. Raising awareness - Risk benefit management
 NFA has developed a working procedure for risk-benefit assessments of food and are
continuously developing methodology within multidisciplinary teams and project
groups. As an example, we are assessing the risk (via aflatoxin exposure) and benefits
(of nutrients and cardioprotective effects) of nut consumption, in collaboration with
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
 We have experience of weighing nutritional, microbiological and toxicological issues
related to food to take action to improve public health. Sweden is one of few
countries with dietary guidelines where sustainable diet is integrated in
recommendations to promote healthy diets.
NFA expertise

11. Raising awareness - Risk benefit management
 NFA is responsible for the national diet survey in Sweden and has long-lasting
experiences from diet surveys with different methods.
 NFA have experience from all parts of a diet surveys from study design to the
examination of data with sophisticated statistical methods i.e. sampling of
participants, data collection (dietary data, physical activity information, socio-
demographic data and biological specimen), data cleaning and report writing.
 NFA also have experience from Food composition data (FCD) work including analytical
projects (sampling, in-house laboratory, quality control of data and dissemination of
the information), recipe calculations, quality assurance of data, food classification
using Langual as well as Foodex 2 and a specific NFA classification.
NFA expertise

12. More information can be find here:
http://www.livsmedelsverket.se/en/