European Apples Tainted With ‘Pesticide Cocktails’, New Study Claims

Thirteen European countries are selling apples in markets and supermarkets with a concerning abundance of pesticide residues, commonly known as “cocktails of pesticides”, according to an NGO report urging the European Union to regulate exposure to these chemicals.

Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Switzerland have reported contamination in apples, according to the latest report from Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, which criticises the EU’s risk assessment procedure for looking at pesticides in silos and disregarding the “cocktail” effect.

“One of the most striking results is that 85% of the tested apples contained multiple pesticide residues,” said Gergely Simon, campaigner at PAN Europe. “The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was tasked 20 years ago to develop a methodology to regulate the cocktail effects of pesticides, but they still do not fulfil this legal obligation.”