GC-MS/MS Detects Pesticides in Juice and Wine

Helena Baša Česnik of the Agricultural Institute of Slovenia (Ljubljana, Slovenia) has recently published a paper in the journal Food Chemistry¹ introducing an analytical method for determining pesticide residues in fruit juices, vegetable juices, and wine was developed and validated for 32 active compounds, including 11 fluorinated ones. Sample extraction was carried out using a mixture of acetone, dichloromethane, and petroleum ether. The analysis was performed with gas chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (GC-MS/MS).

How Prevalent are Pesticide Residues in Fruits versus Vegetables, and Why Does This Matter for Food Safety?

It is well known that pesticide residues turn up in plant-based foods, and research shows that fruits tend to have residues (and mixtures of multiple different pesticides) more often than vegetables do. Earlier work co-authored by Česnik² found that fruits were far more likely than vegetables to contain pesticide residues (74.2% of samples versus 21.0%) and even more likely to contain a mix of several different pesticides at once (50.2% versus just 2.9%).

In its 2019 report on pesticide residues in food across the European Union,³ the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which looked at fruits and vegetables separately, found that 69.1% of fruit samples and 44.6% of vegetable samples contained pesticide residues. In this year's report,⁴ the EFSA reports that for every type of fruit examined in 2024, more than half the samples contained multiple pesticide residues at once. Grapes had the highest rate, at 78%, followed by grapefruit at 73.5% and bananas at 66.1%. This matters especially for products made directly from fruit, like juices and wine, since they can be a major way people are exposed to these residues through their diet. That is why, in Česni’s opinion,keeping tabs on pesticide residues and assessing the risks they pose to consumers remains so important for food safety.¹

“Fruit and vegetables,” Česnik writes in her paper,¹ “are essential components of the human diet due to their nutritional value. Consumers demand that they are not only healthy but also safe foods. Crop protection strategies often require the application of plant protection products (PPPs), which may result in unintended pesticide residues in food. Consequently, monitoring chemical food safety is imperative to protect public health.”

What Did Česnik’s Analysis Reveal About Pesticide Residues and Consumer Risk?

Česnik’s method was applied to the analysis of 81 commercial samples (34 fruit juices, 6 vegetable juices, and 41 wine samples). About half the wine samples were red and half were white. Slovenia has four major juice makers — Fructal, Dana, Moj dan, and Presad — and its wine industry is spread across three wine-growing regions (Primorska, Podravje, and Posavje), with roughly 250 winemakers working in the country. Because of this, very few juices or wines sold in Slovenia are imported, so most of the samples collected were Slovenian made. This means the results might not apply as well to other countries, since so few imported products were included. Vegetable juices were hard to find in stores, so the researchers could only gather six samples. Fruit juices came in two package sizes (1 liter and a smaller 0.2 liter), and both were tested to see if the size made any difference. That's worth noting because the smaller bottles are mostly bought for children, who are especially vulnerable to pesticide exposure. For wine, one bottle (either 0.75 or 1 liter) was used per sample. In both cases, a single package or bottle was enough for testing, since juice and wine are uniform throughout, meaning the amount tested does not affect the accuracy of the analysis.¹

Česnik’s analysis detected nine different pesticides overall, with as many as five showing up in a single sample. Three of these were fluorine-containing pesticides (fludioxonil, fluopyram, and trifloxystrobin). In total, 58% of samples had some level of pesticide residue. After converting these results back to what they would represent in the original raw fruit or vegetables, four samples (3.7%) came in above the legal limit. Looking at long-term exposure, the levels found were within safe limits. But for short-term (acute) exposure, a few specific combinations raised some concern: boscalid in apples eaten by children, cyprodinil in wine grapes eaten by adults, and fludioxonil in apples and peaches eaten by children.¹

Read More on Similar Topics

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References

1. Česnik, H. B. Pesticide Residues in Juice and Wine: Validation of a Multi-Method and a Market Survey with Consumer Risk Assessment. Food Chem. 2026, 525 (Pt 3), 150618. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2026.150618
2. Česnik, H. B.; Bolta, Š. V.; Gregorčič, A. Pesticide Residues in Agricultural Products of the Slovene Origin Found in 2001-2009; In Pesticides-Formulations, Effects, Fate. IntechOpen, 2011.
3. EFSA. The 2019 European Union Report on Pesticide Residues in Food, EFSA Journal 2021, 19 (4), 6491, DOI: 10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6491
4. EFSA. The 2024 European Union report on Pesticide Residues in Food. EFSA Journal 2026, 24, e10054. DOI: 10.2903/j.efsa.2026.10054