Acrylamide content in potato chips on the Italian market determined by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry

An easy-to-use and simplified liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI (+)-MS ⁄MS) method was adopted to determine the amount of acrylamide in thirty-two samples of potato chips purchased on the South Italian market in 2009. Extract produced from matrices was directly analysed without derivatisation, the use of isotopically labelled acrylamide or the use of clean up cartridges. Quality analytical data were reported. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were 6 microg/kg and 18 microg/kg, respectively and recovery values ranged from 90.7–96.3%. The relative standard deviation (RSD) ranged between 2.1% and 5.8%. The values ranged between 27 and 1400 microg/ kg and the arithmetic mean acrylamide content resulted 363 microg/kg. According to Foot et al. [Food Additives and Contaminants, 24 (2007)(S1), 37] and considering 500 microg/ kg as the minimum level possible with the actual available mitigation tools, the number of samples showing an acrylamide level higher than 500 microg/kg resulted to be 22%. This paper gives a contribution to data collection in response to the monitoring activity of EFSA and following the Commission Recommendation 2007⁄331⁄EC: really, the number of Italian samples of potato chips and potato products for which acrylamide values was reported in the ‘results on the monitoring of acrylamide’ of EFSA (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/cs/BlobServer).