Occurrence of total aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1, G2) in commercial peanut and peanut butter from the Saudi market in the period from 2015 to 2020

Nut products are susceptible to contamination with mycotoxin, especially aflatoxins, which results of mold growth during harvest or storage. This study aimed to evaluate the occurrence of aflatoxins in peanut products from the Saudi market. A total of 472 samples of peanut and peanut butter imported from various countries were collected in the period from 2015 to 2020. All samples were analyzed by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Total aflatoxins (B1, B2, G1, G2) were found to exceed the maximum level (ML) in 38 samples (8.1 %) with a concentration range of 15.56-973.21 µg/kg, while 434 samples were below ML (91.9 %). Specifically, in Peanut butter samples, 27 out of 333 were contaminated with Aflatoxins (8.8 %), and 11 out of 139 peanut samples were contaminated with aflatoxins (8.6 %). The results show that the percentage of Aflatoxins contamination was reduced in the period (2019 - 2020) compared to (2015 - 2018), due to the control of mycotoxins in Saudi Arabia which played an important role in reducing the contamination of AFs in peanut products.