Incidence of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Portuguese Traditional Dry Smoked Meat Products Manufactured at Home for Self-Consumption and by Micro Industrial Plants

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentration in dry meat products is a priority safety requirement, mainly in those processed under the traditional smoking procedure. In order to investigate the levels occurred in traditional dry fermented sausages manufactured by regional home producers, samples were collected in region of Central-East part of Portugal for comparison with those from one micro industrial plant situated in the same geographical area. In the former products, mean total PAHs level (1364.0 mu g/kg) almost doubled that of industrial counterparts (750 mu g/kg) with PAH(8) representing 2.9 and 1.65% of those total contaminations, respectively. In both product groups, BaA and CHR were the most concentrated compounds within the PAH8 indicator (15.39 mu g/kg and 13.66 mu g/kg vs 5.67 mu g/kg and 5.15 mu g/kg). In home made products the BaP concentration surpassed the limit value of 5.0 mu g/kg in 31.3% of the samples, with 3 of these cases more than doubling that amount. In addition, more than 93% of samples showed a BaP contamination higher than 1.0 mu g/kg. By the contrary, among products processed under the industrial conditions that limit was never surpassed and 81.3% of the samples presented a BaP level lower than 1.0 mu g/kg.