The Quality Programme for Agricultural Products (KAP) database contains chemical monitoring data in food and animal feed. These data are from measurements of pesticide residues, residues of veterinary drugs and several contaminants, such as acrylamide, mycotoxins, PFAS and heavy metals. The data originate from monitoring programs, and are sent by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and Wageningen Food Safety Research (WFSR) and recorded centrally in the KAP-database.

The KAP-database

The KAP-database was established in 1992, commissioned by the Dutch government, and was maintained by RIKILT, a Dutch research institute in Wageningen. The main purpose of KAP is to establish a database for chemical monitoring data in food and feed. This is achieved by close collaboration with mainly two organizations in the Netherlands, the NVWA and WFSR. Data collected by these organizations are recorded centrally in the KAP-database. This includes results from diverse monitoring programs, leading to more than 2.300.000 monitoring results on a yearly basis. Examples of compounds recorded in the KAP-database include dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB’s), mycotoxins, pesticides, hormones, veterinary drugs, antibiotics and heavy metals. These compounds are measured in more than 1000 different food or feed products. The KAP-database is essential for risk assessments, trend analysis, and diverse questions about findings of chemical compounds in food or feed.

In 2010, the KAP-database was re-organised and became part of RIVM (Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment).

RIVM sends data stored in the KAP-database on a yearly basis to EFSA. This data is used by EFSA for the establishment of risk assessment guidelines, health based guideline values and the (re-)evaluation of chemical compounds to which we can be exposed.