Strawberry Pesticide Residues: Perceptions, Compliance, and Dietary Exposure—A Greek Case Study

Abstract

Perceived pesticide contamination may not align directly with the toxicological significance of dietary exposure. This study juxtaposed a cross-sectional convenience survey of 1318 adults in Greece with independent official monitoring and deterministic exposure assessment for strawberries. Among 14 commodities, strawberries received the highest perceived contamination rating, with 85.9% selecting one of the two highest categories. The official Greek pesticide-residue monitoring dataset for 2022–2024 comprised 171 strawberry samples; 140 (81.9%) contained at least one quantified residue. Because sampling included objective, selective, and suspect records, this percentage characterizes the analysed dataset rather than market prevalence in Greece. Ten samples (5.8%) had at least one numerical maximum residue level (MRL) exceedance, and three (1.8%) were classified as non-compliant after accounting for measurement uncertainty. Using the EFSA PRIMo model, revision 3.1, and HELLANS-specific consumption inputs, the highest acute estimate was 51.9% for the acute reference dose for formetanate. All upper-bound strawberry-specific chronic estimates were below 1% of the acceptable daily intake, with a maximum of 0.3809% for abamectin. Thus, high perceived contamination and frequent residue quantification coexisted with exposure estimates below the corresponding health-based guidance values under the applied scenarios, supporting separate but complementary interpretation of occurrence, compliance, and dietary exposure in risk communication.