Grains, Cereals, and Rice Products — HMTc Program Manual

Scope and method

Every limit on every subcategory is the strictest maximum level set by any credible government worldwide, converted to the product’s native basis, with a disclosed read-across from the nearest government value where no government regulates the exact product. Nothing is invented; every number traces to a named sovereign limit in the regulation references.

Method: government-limit default (Method v2.0). Grain, cereal, and rice limits are taken at face value in each product’s native basis (as sold for solids; as consumed for rice beverages); there is no reconstitution conversion. The rice / non-rice split is the clean / dirty structure, and it falls straight out of the government limits themselves: every rice subcategory carries a binding inorganic-arsenic maximum level set by product form (EU 2023/915), while non-rice cereals resolve inorganic arsenic as not-material because arsenic does not hyperaccumulate in them. Total arsenic (tAs) carries the government cereal / rice total-arsenic ceiling as an independent limit; the inorganic fraction is the toxic species and binds first on rice. Every claim analyte is equal at the gate: a product is certified only at or below 100% of each published government floor or disclosed read-across. An exceedance on any metal enters Remediation unmarked; there is no transitional overage. Methylmercury is bounded by the total-mercury ceiling; hexavalent chromium is controlled by reflex speciation on total chromium; tin is material only for canned product (routed to the canned-goods category); aluminium has no government grain maximum. The rice inorganic-arsenic maximum for products destined for infants and young children (100 ppb) is stricter and is set in the Infant and Child Foods volume, not here.

Master limit matrix

All values ppb (µg/kg) in each row’s native basis. Click any subcategory for its full government-by-government derivation. n/m = not material in the matrix; controlled by screen or reflex speciation, not a number.

Subcategory	Pb	iAs	tAs	Hg	MeHg	Cd	Cr	Cr-VI	Ni	Sn	Al	Basis
Flour — wheat, corn, and other non-rice	100	—	200	20	—	100	1000	—	800	250000	100000	as sold
Bread and baked goods — non-rice	100	—	300	20	—	100	1000	—	800	250000	100000	as sold
Pasta — wheat-based	100	—	200	20	—	100	1000	—	800	250000	200000	as sold
Breakfast cereal — non-rice	100	—	200	20	—	100	1000	—	800	250000	100000	as sold
Other grain products — oat, millet, quinoa, barley	100	—	300	20	—	50	1000	—	800	250000	100000	as sold
Grain-based snacks — crackers, biscuits, cookies, popcorn, pretzels	100	—	300	20	—	100	1000	—	800	250000	100000	as sold
Rice — bulk grain (white, brown, wild)	200	150	300	20	—	100	1000	—	1500	250000	100000	as sold
Pasta — rice-based	200	250	300	20	—	100	1000	—	1500	250000	200000	as sold
Rice noodles	200	250	300	20	—	100	1000	—	1500	250000	200000	as sold
Breakfast cereal — rice-based	200	300	300	20	—	100	1000	—	1500	250000	100000	as sold
Rice snacks and crackers — rice cakes, wafers	200	300	300	20	—	100	1000	—	1500	250000	100000	as sold
Rice beverages — rice milk	50	30	50	1	—	2	50	10	250	100000	200	as consumed

Every claim analyte is equal at the gate. A product is certified only when every published limit is met at or below 100% of its government floor or disclosed read-across. An exceedance on any metal enters Remediation and carries no mark.

Risk Flag

On the published occurrence literature to date, no subcategory in Grains, Cereals, and Rice Products shows a systematic gap between typical market levels and the limit — the limit being the strictest government maximum for each product (Method v2.0). Certification is decided on a product’s own tested result, not on a distribution; individual lots or suppliers can still exceed a limit.

See the cross-category summary of the ingredients that most often struggle.

About this edition

Standards are living, versioned documents; each subcategory page carries its own version history and dated change log. This is the current web edition. A consolidated, version-pinned PDF of the full manual is in preparation and will be linked here on release; until then each subcategory page is individually citable.

The literature baseline underlying these certification limits is maintained independently at the Heavy Metal Index. This certification standard applies those findings; the two are kept editorially separate by design.