An importer bringing Turkish dried figs into the EU is working inside a tighter regime than they were two years ago, and the change has two parts rather than one. The check frequency went up, and a second mycotoxin joined the list. Either alone would be manageable; together they move dried figs from a category you clear to a category you plan.
What actually changed, and when
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1441 entered into force on 12 August 2025. It set the frequency of identity and physical checks on consignments of Turkish dried figs at 30%, and it named both aflatoxins and ochratoxin A as hazards of concern. The comparison point matters: under Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 the frequency stood at 20%, and the hazard was aflatoxins alone. Before that it had been 10%.
Member states were given a two-month transition from entry into force, during which consignments accompanied by laboratory analyses and official certificates relating only to aflatoxins could still be accepted. That window closed in October 2025. Current shipments need both hazards covered in the analysis and on the certificate.
Reading a check frequency correctly
Thirty per cent is a sampling rate, not a rejection rate, and the distinction is worth being precise about because it drives entirely different decisions. It means roughly three consignments in ten are selected for identity and physical checks, which in this context means sampling and laboratory analysis at the border. Nothing about the selection implies suspicion of the individual lot.
What it does imply is variance. A consignment that is not selected moves at one speed; a consignment that is selected waits for a laboratory result. A supply plan built on the unselected case will be wrong three times out of ten, and those three occasions will be the ones that matter, because they land on a promotion date or a listing window. The right response is to build the slower case into the schedule rather than to treat it as an exception, which is also the cheapest response, since it costs nothing but honesty at the planning stage.
The levels the analysis is measured against
Under Regulation (EU) 2023/915, dried figs carry a maximum of 6 µg/kg for aflatoxin B1 and 10 µg/kg for total aflatoxins — the sum of B1, B2, G1 and G2. For ochratoxin A the maximum level covering dried vine fruit and dried figs is 8.0 µg/kg.
Knowing the numbers is less useful than knowing where the risk concentrates. Mycotoxin contamination in dried fruit is characteristically uneven: a lot is not uniformly contaminated, it contains a small number of affected units distributed unpredictably. That is why sampling protocol carries as much weight as the analysis itself, and why a certificate of analysis on an unrepresentative sample is worth very little. When a buyer reviews a supplier's documentation, the sampling plan deserves the same attention as the result.
Where the work belongs in the timeline
The split of responsibility is straightforward once stated. The exporter arranges representative sampling and laboratory analysis before shipment and supplies the official certificate; the importer files the entry documentation and carries the consignment through the border control post. Neither party can do the other's part.
What goes wrong is almost always sequencing rather than substance. Analysis takes laboratory time. Certification takes administrative time. Both are known quantities that can be scheduled into the production window, and both become emergencies when they are started after the goods are ready. A supplier who treats pre-shipment analysis as an optional extra is not saving anyone money; they are moving their own risk into the buyer's clearance window, where it costs more.
What this means when choosing a fig supplier
The practical test is not whether a supplier can produce a certificate — everyone can produce a certificate. It is whether they can describe their sampling plan without being prompted, whether the analysis covers both hazards as a matter of routine rather than on request, and whether they will tell you early that a requested delivery date no longer leaves room for testing.
Our own fig product is a low-temperature dried fig crisp made at our geothermal facility in Sındırgı and packed as fruit and nothing else, with no added sugar, preservatives or colourants. Production runs under ISO 9001 and ISO 22000, with batch-level traceability and a certificate of analysis available on request; we hold no certification beyond those and do not imply otherwise. Mycotoxin analysis is planned into the production window rather than chased afterwards, and where a requested date no longer allows for it we say so and plan the next slot — because in this regime an optimistic yes simply relocates the problem to the border.
