Safety of terrestrial gastropods food products

Abstract

The development of the terrestrial gastropods rearing, including the grape snail, in Russian Federation for the purpose of producing food products, and possibly exporting these products to traditionally consuming the molluscs in the European region, presuppose the appropriate regulatory framework development, incl. regulating the obtained food products safety. In order to provide a scientific justification for the introduced regulations, scientific information was collected on the food risks in terrestrial gastropods, which are traditionally consumed by humans. The specificity of this terrestrial invertebrates group leads to the formation of a safety indicators list that need to be monitored, which is not found in other groups, including those that are unique for the Russian Federation, primarily microbiological and parasitological. On the other hand, some of the risk factors for the consumption of terrestrial gastropods (the content of toxic elements, persistent organic pollutants and foodborne pathogens) are associated with the conditions of their keeping and feeding. According to the results of the study, the most common risk factors were recommended for inclusion in regulations.