During the last three years of monitoring, 98.8% of food samples in the EU were free of residues or within legal limits.

Omissions

• The claim does not specify the exact reference period behind 'the last three years of monitoring'; EFSA publishes annual (not three-yearly) compliance data, so the period is imprecise.
• EFSA's most recent annual reports give slightly lower compliance rates than the claimed 98.8%: 98.0% of samples within legal limits in 2023 and 98.2% in 2024 (86,449 samples), a level 'consistent with previous years, including 98% in 2023 and 97.8%...'.
• The exact figure of 98.8% appears in EFSA's monitoring infographic and, historically, was used by EFSA in 2016 to describe compliance of ORGANIC products specifically (2014 data: '98.8% of organic products were either free of residues or contained residues within legal limits'), while the overall 2014 figure was 97.1%.
• Some EFSA sources give lower figures for particular subsets (e.g. 94.5% of 37,263 samples within legal limits in one programme of the 2024 report), showing that the headline percentage depends on which sample set is used.
• The exact reference period of the 98.8% figure in EFSA's infographic could not be pinned down within the available searches.

Sources

• PrimaryEFSA — How Europe Monitors Pesticide Residues In Food (infographic)Food inspection services in the EU, Iceland and Norway have monitoring programmes in place to check that food complies with legal limits. 98.8% ...
• PrimaryEFSA News — Pesticide residues in food: latest data releasedFrom 86,449 samples, 98.2% were found to be compliant with the EU's MRLs, a level consistent with previous years, including 98% in 2023 and 97.8 ...
• PrimaryEFSA Journal — The 2023 European Union report on pesticide residues in foodOverall, 13,000 samples (98.0%) were found to be within the legal limits. MRLs were exceeded in 246 samples (2%), of which 135 samples (1.0%) ...
• PrimaryEFSA Journal — The 2021 European Union report on pesticide residues in foodIn total, 96.1% of the samples fell within the legal limit. This tendency seems to be constant for the last years (94.9% in 2020; 96.1% in 2019)
• Secondarywired-gov — Pesticide residues in food: risk to consumers remains low (EFSA 2014 report coverage)No quantifiable residues were found in 91.8% of baby food samples. 98.8% of organic products were either free of residues or contained residues within legal limits