Evaluating the performance of sampling plans to detect hypoglycin A in ackee fruit shipments imported into the United States

Hypoglycin A (HGA) is a toxic amino acid that is naturally produced in unripe ackee fruit. In 1973, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) placed a worldwide import alert on ackee fruit, which banned the product from entering the United States. The FDA has considered establishing a regulatory limit for HGA and lifting the ban, which will require development of a monitoring program. The establishment of a regulatory limit for HGA requires the development of a scientifically based sampling plan to detect HGA in ackee fruit imported into the United States. Thirty-three lots of ackee fruit were sampled according to an experimental protocol in which 10 samples, i.e., ten 19 oz cans, were randomly taken from each lot and analyzed for HGA by using liquid chromatography. The total variance was partitioned into sampling and analytical variance components, which were found to be a function of the HGA concentration. Regression equations were developed to predict the total, sampling, and analytical variances as a function of HGA concentration. The observed HGA distribution among the test results for the 10 HGA samples was compared with the normal and lognormal distributions. A computer model based on the lognormal distribution was developed to predict the performance of sampling plan designs to detect HGA in ackee fruit shipments. The performance of several sampling plan designs was evaluated to demonstrate how to manipulate sample size and accept/reject limits to reduce misclassification of ackee fruit lots.