Fate of moniliformin during different large-scale maize dry-milling processes

Moniliformin is a widespread emerging mycotoxin. Despite all the data so far present in the scientific literature there is a lack of information on the fate of MON during the maize milling. Thus, in order to collect new occurrence data on the fate of the MON in maize food products, also in relation to the FBs, 4 maize lots have been processed through a dry-degermination and a tempering-degermination dry-milling process. The whole grain before and after cleaning, and all the products and the by-products were sampled twice for each lot and were subjected to moniliformin and fumonisin LC-MS/MS analysis. The sum of the 3 food-grade products from tempering-degermination (flaking grits, medium and small hominy grits) only contributed to 4% of the total fumonisin contamination, but to as much as 19% of the total moniliformin contamination of the whole grain. Conversely, the pearl meal, break meal and maize flour from the dry-degermination system had a fumonisin and a moniliformin content that amounted to 12% and 16%, respectively, of the total contamination of the kernels. The results obtained in the present survey underline a weaker moniliformin decontamination than fumonisin abatement, which point out a higher risk of exposure for the end consumers.