[Comparison of different DON-standards]

DON is the only mycotoxin of the trichothecene group that has been regulated in food so far by the German authorities. The quantitative determination of DON in food and feed therefore is of great importance regarding compliance with legal limits. An important source of measurement error is the bias introduced by different absolute concentration of calibration standards. To make an estimation of the contribution of calibration standards to total error six different DON-standards provided by the participants of the project "Analysis and occurence of important Fusarium toxins (DON and ZEA) and uptake of these toxins by the German consumer" sponsored by the German Ministry of Consumer Protection, Nutrition and Agriculture (BMVEL, Projekt BLE 00HS055) were analyzed and compared to three batches of commercial standard solutions. The range of the results was between 29.2 and 26.3% for the laboratory standards and 11.3 respective 3% for the commercial standards depending on different calculation modes (UV height and area and fluorescence height). Therefore a substantial reduction of the measurement error by using commercial standards instead of laboratory-prepared standards seems possible.