Critical points of Brazil nuts: a beginning for food safety, quality control and Amazon sustainability.

Background: One difficulty of self-sustainability is the quality assurance of native products. This research was designed to study the risks and critical control points in the collection, handling and marketing of Brazil nuts from native forests and urban fairs in the Brazilian Amazon by characterisation of morphological aspects of fungi and posterior identification by molecular biology and determination of aflatoxins by high-performance liquid chromatography.

Results: Several corrective actions to improve product quality were found to be necessary in both sites.