On the basis of these findings, the inspectors recommend the Belgian authorities to fully apply the Community legislation, to reflect on the organisation of their food security system, to continue their investigation into the source of contamination. Other Member States should ensure that no chemical contamination can occur during the collection of recycled oils. They should also evaluate the risks of using certain oils in the old installations for fat heating which exist in the sectors of the animal feed and food production. The inspectors recommend to improve the animal feed legislation in particular by imposing strict rules on the use of recycled oils and to examine the situation in other Member States that received potentially contaminated feed.
Meanwhile a group of Commission and external scientific experts came to the conclusion that in this specific case of contamination, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) can be used as an indicator for dioxins for chicken, eggs and derived products. If less than 200 ng/g fat is found, the PCB analysis is sufficient. If more than 200 ng/g fat is found, the food should also be checked for dioxins. Dioxin tests are costly and time-consuming. In the best case it takes approximately a week to obtain a result and there are not enough highly specialised laboratories for this work. Analysis for PCBs take less than two days and are less expensive. In the present situation where large amounts of food is blocked in order to be traced and tested, such a screening method could give a quick estimate of the contamination of food and allow to identify contaminated products speedily.