PAN Europe: "25% of consumed fruit and vegetables contains pesticide residues not assessed by EFSA"

"41,6% of fruits and vegetables sold in the EU contain pesticide residues, with 25.5% containing more than one residue. This means that one out of four consumed fruit and vegetables exposes consumers to pesticide cocktails that are not assessed by EFSA, despite its legal obligation to do so", according to PAN Europe, on 05/05/2026.

The NGO reacted to the publication of the 2024 European Food Safety Authority annual report, dedicated to pesticide residues in food, based on the results of food samples collected across Europe.

Whereas the Agency declared that "the risk to human health from pesticide residues in food remains low", PAN Europe argued that these results "remain concerning".

According to Salomé Roynel, policy officer at Pan Europe, "consumers are exposed on a daily basis to cocktails of endocrine disruptors, PFAS pesticides or neurotoxicants whose combined health effects are not assessed. This is due to EFSA’s unacceptable failure to deliver on its legal obligation to develop a methodology to assess pesticide cocktails since 2005."

The NGO declares regretting "the lack of transparency in EFSA's general communication, which provides only general statistics on the level of contamination, and fails to highlight that the most frequently found pesticides are the most hazardous, a fact which is instead buried within their database".

"The most hazardous pesticides, banned to protect health and the environment, are coming back to our plates through imported food, and they are those more frequently breaching legal limits. This is a toxic double standard that must end, as promised in the Vision for Agriculture and Food", adds Salomé Roynel.

PAN Europe advocates for "the immediate application of a Mixture Assessment Factor (MAF) to reduce allowable exposure limits and better protect public health against exposure to pesticide cocktails".