Improving the food safety of bakery products by simultaneously monitoring the occurrence of pyrrolizidine, tropane and opium alkaloids

The exponential number of food alerts about concerning levels of some plant-alkaloids, such as pyrrolizidine, tropane and opium alkaloids, have stressed the need to monitor their occurrence in foods to avoid toxic health effects derived from their intake. Therefore, analytical strategies to simultaneously monitor the occurrence of these alkaloids should be developed to ensure food safety an comply with regulations. Accordingly, this work proposes an efficient multicomponent analytical strategy for the simultaneous extraction of these alkaloids from commercial bakery products. The analytical method was validated and applied to the analysis of 15 samples, revealing that 100% of them contained at least one of the target alkaloids, in some cases exceeding the maximum limits legislated. Moreover, in two samples the 3 different alkaloid families were detected. These results confirm the importance of simultaneously monitoring these alkaloids in food and highlight also considering some opium alkaloids in current legislation. •Significant improvements in chromatographic separation of pyrrolizidine isomers•60% of the bakery samples were contaminated with one or more alkaloid-type•Tropane alkaloids were the most widespread in bakery products•Atropine was quantified above the limit set in legislation•Concerning concentrations of unregulated opiates (e.g., oripavine, thebaine) were found. [Display omitted]