🌾 Cereal products — presence of pests and their residues, mineral, organic and ferromagnetic impurities, PN-A-74016

Food chemistry PN-A-74016

Overview

WHAT THE STANDARD COVERS. The “Scope” field of the PKN catalogue card of PN-A-74016:1974, in full (our translation from Polish): “The subject of the standard are methods for determining pests, their residues and impurities in cereal products.” The card gives only the Polish title; the English title in the header of this entry is our translation.

STATUS (PKN card as of 06.11.2026). The card “PN-A-74016:1974 - Polish version” carries the label “Withdrawn” and the line “Withdrawal date: 21-07-2016”. The card has no “Replaced by” field — the catalogue names no successor. “Replaces: PN-A-74016:1964 - Polish version”. Edition: published 13-03-1974, 4 pages, Food, Agriculture and Forestry Sector, technical body KT 36 Cereals and Cereal Products, ICS 67.060. Withdrawal does not change the content of the standard; the card does not say which document to test by instead. The list of withdrawn standards used by the laboratory GBA Polska (update of 11.02.2026) places PN-A-74016:1974 in the part “Standards withdrawn by PKN without replacement” — in line with the card.

THE SAME NUMBER, THREE DIFFERENT STANDARDS. In accreditation scopes the number 74016 stands next to three documents from different series, with different subjects: PN-A-74016:1974 (cereal products — this entry), PN-R-74016:1969, also written “PN-69/R-74016” (cereal grain: pests and useful and useless impurities — AB 103, AB 515, AB 562, AB 1275; 8 entries) and PN-V-74016:2001 (canned vegetables: organoleptic evaluation of packaging and contents — AB 076; 2 entries). AB 515 and AB 562 have side by side in their scopes PN-R-74016 for grain and PN-A-74016 for cereal products. A notation of the number alone or a wrong series letter therefore points to a different document than intended.

HOW MANY LABORATORIES AND IN WHAT FORM (copy of the accreditation scope database refreshed from the production server on 02.11.2026, read on 06.11.2026; current PCA documents, read on 06.11.2026). Notations of the number 74016 with the letter A (PN-A-74016 and PN-74/A-74016; no digit may stand directly before or after the number): 10 entries at 9 Polish laboratories — AB 562 (2 entries), AB 379, AB 381, AB 435, AB 515, AB 520, AB 521, AB 530 and AB 635 (1 each); there are no Czech laboratories with this number in the copy. We do not count the 10 entries with the same number in the R and V series (paragraph above). Notations: “PN-A-74016:1974” — 6 entries at 5 laboratories (AB 379, AB 435, AB 515, AB 562, AB 635), “PN-74/A-74016” — 4 entries at 4 laboratories (AB 381, AB 520, AB 521, AB 530). The “Laboratories” tab (“PN-A-74016”) gives the same on the same copy: 9 laboratories, 10 entries — it recognises both notations and does not mix the series. In the current PCA scope documents of these 9 laboratories the notation with the letter A occurs 10 times in total — as many as in the copy; none of these entries is marked as suspended.

WHAT THE LABORATORIES TEST (database copy and PCA documents, complete entries). Presence of pests and their residues by the visual method: cereal-flour products — live and dead cereal-flour pests and their residues (AB 379); cereals and cereal products — cereal-flour pests and their residues (AB 381); cereal products (AB 530; AB 515 — “excluding points 2.1.3, 2.5, 2.6”); cereal products and pasta — biological contaminants, including pests and their residues, “excluding p.2.4.2, p. 2.5 and p.2.6”, together with PN-A-74130:1993 p. 3.8 (AB 635; PN-A-74130:1993 withdrawn on 21-09-2015 according to its PKN card, read on 06.11.2026). Foreign mineral and organic impurities: cereals and cereal products, (0,01–10,0) %, visual and gravimetric method, point 2.6.1 (AB 435); cereal products, (0,02–50) %, gravimetric method, points 2.6 and 2.6.1 (AB 562); cereal products, gravimetric method, point 2.6, without a numerical range (AB 520). Ferromagnetic impurities by the gravimetric method, point 2.5.2: dried herbs and spices (1–100) mg/kg (AB 521); herbal raw materials and herbal spices (0,01–500,00) mg/kg (AB 562).

CLAUSES OF THE STANDARD IN THE SCOPES. We know the clause numbers only from accreditation scopes, not from the text of the standard: point 2.5.2 — ferromagnetic impurities (AB 521, AB 562), points 2.6 and 2.6.1 — mineral and organic impurities (AB 435, AB 520, AB 562). Two laboratories testing pests exclude points 2.5 and 2.6 and additionally point 2.1.3 (AB 515) or 2.4.2 (AB 635); what 2.1.3 and 2.4.2 concern — WE HAVE NOT ESTABLISHED. AB 379, AB 381 and AB 530 cite the standard without a clause and without exclusions.

WHERE A SEEMINGLY CORRECT RESULT IS EASY TO GET. First — the document: for cereal grain laboratories cite PN-R-74016, for cereal products PN-A-74016; a test report with the number alone or with a wrong series points to a different standard. Second — measurement: the result for pests is qualitative (presence or absence, visual method), and “absence” depends on how much material was examined and how — WE DO NOT GIVE this, we did not have the text of the standard. Laboratories report mineral and organic impurities in per cent, ferromagnetic ones in mg/kg, i.e. in units 10 000 times smaller; mixing up the units when copying a result gives a number that looks credible. Third — calculation: a result in per cent and in mg/kg depends on the mass of the sample from which the impurities were separated; WE DO NOT GIVE it. Fourth — the test object: laboratories also apply the standard to dried herbs, spices and pasta; whether the standard provides for this — WE HAVE NOT ESTABLISHED; this is a reading of the scopes, not of the content of the standard.

WHAT WE DO NOT GIVE. We did not have the text of the standard — PKN makes it available for a fee (4 pages), and we found no preview online. We do not give the size and manner of taking the sample, the manner of sieving and inspection, the list of pests, the manner of separating ferromagnetic, mineral and organic impurities, formulae, requirements or the content of points 2.1.3 and 2.4.2. We did not read the catalogue cards of PN-R-74016 and PN-V-74016 — we give their subjects from accreditation scopes; the list of PKN search results (search term “pszenica zanieczyszczeń”, 06.11.2026) gives the title of PN-R-74016:1969 “Ziarno zbóż -- Oznaczanie szkodników, zanieczyszczeń i zaśniecenia” (Cereal grain — Determination of pests, impurities and bunt) with the annotation “Withdrawn” — we do not give a status from the card. We did not check references to the standard in legislation.

Method principle

According to the card of the standard: the standard gives methods for determining pests, their residues and impurities in cereal products. In accreditation scopes the following methods stand next to this standard: the visual method (presence of live and dead pests and their residues — qualitative result), the gravimetric or visual and gravimetric method (mineral and organic impurities, result in %, points 2.6 and 2.6.1) and the gravimetric method (ferromagnetic impurities, result in mg/kg, point 2.5.2). WE DO NOT GIVE the course of the determinations — we did not have the text of the standard.

Applications

• Cereal products and cereal-flour products — presence of live and dead pests and their residues, visual method
• Foreign mineral and organic impurities — gravimetric or visual and gravimetric method (points 2.6 and 2.6.1 in the scopes), result in per cent
• Ferromagnetic impurities — gravimetric method (point 2.5.2 in the scopes), result in mg/kg
• In accreditation scopes also dried herbs and spices, and pasta

Key parameters

Standard

Standard number

PN-A-74016:1974

Title (PL)

Przetwory zbożowe — Oznaczanie szkodników, ich pozostałości i zanieczyszczeń

Title (EN)

Cereal products — Determination of pests, their residues and impurities

Step-by-step procedure

1. Status and series of the document

   PKN card: the standard was withdrawn on 21-07-2016, without a “Replaced by” field (state of the card on 06.11.2026). For cereal grain laboratories cite PN-R-74016, for cereal products — PN-A-74016; the series letter must match the test object.

2. Indicating the determination

   In the scopes: pests and their residues (without a clause or — at two laboratories — excluding points 2.5 and 2.6), ferromagnetic impurities (point 2.5.2), mineral and organic impurities (points 2.6, 2.6.1).

3. Determination

   Pests — visual method, result: presence or absence; impurities — gravimetric method, result in % or in mg/kg. WE DO NOT GIVE the sample size, course and formulae — we did not have the text of the standard.

4. Result

   The series and year of the standard (PN-A-74016:1974), the clause and the unit of the result are stated — per cent and mg/kg differ by a factor of 10 000.

Required equipment and apparatus

Reagents, media and consumables

Health and safety (OHS)

• We do not describe hazards and precautions — we did not have the text of the standard, and the card does not list them
• TECHNICAL NOTE: PN-A-74016 (cereal products), PN-R-74016 (cereal grain) and PN-V-74016 (canned vegetables) are three different standards with the same number

Frequently asked questions