Hidden Chemicals in Our Food and Water?

Guest post by Dave Rhodes

Why New Zealand Cannot Ignore the Global Warning on Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA)**

For years, we have raised alarms about chemical contamination in our rivers, lakes and soils. From pesticides in groundwater to nitrates in drinking water, the story has been depressingly familiar: issues appear overseas long before New Zealand agencies even begin to acknowledge the possibility of a problem here. Now, a new chemical has thrust itself into the global spotlight — and once again, New Zealand appears worryingly silent.

This time the concern is Trifluoroacetic Acid (TFA), an ultra-persistent, ultra-mobile chemical that is turning up in measurable — and in some cases disturbing — concentrations in food, soil, rivers and drinking water throughout Europe. The most recent shock came from European laboratory testing of breakfast cereals, where TFA contamination was found in the vast majority of products tested, sometimes at concentrations 100 times higher than anything seen in water. Regulators overseas are suddenly scrambling to understand why.

Yet here in New Zealand the issue is scarcely mentioned. No government agency has announced monitoring, testing, or even a basic review of the potential risks. And given what is now known about how TFA forms, persists and moves through the environment, this silence is difficult to defend.

It is time to have a serious national discussion — before we repeat the mistakes of the past.

What Is TFA — and Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere?

Trifluoroacetic Acid is not a household name. It is a small, simple, extremely stubborn molecule belonging to the same family as PFAS — the now-infamous “forever chemicals” that refuse to break down and have contaminated soils, rivers and drinking water around the world. Unlike longer-chain PFAS, which accumulate in body fat and animal tissue, TFA is highly soluble and mobile, easily moving through soil into groundwater and waterways. It sticks around for decades or centuries, and once present, it is almost impossible to remove.

So why is it appearing now in food and the environment at such dramatic levels?

Because TFA is not just emitted directly — it is also a breakdown product of many widely used fluorinated chemicals, including:

• several modern agricultural pesticides,
  
• certain domestic and industrial fluorinated compounds, and
  
• some atmospheric chemicals breaking down into TFA and returning to earth with rainfall.
  

In short, TFA is the chemical residue that accumulates when modern fluorochemicals finally degrade.

And because these fluorinated products have been used for decades in agriculture, manufacturing and industry, their combined long-term breakdown now appears to be creating a significant, global pulse of TFA entering soils, water, crops and food chains.

That alone would warrant attention. But what alarms European scientists most is where TFA is now being detected.

TFA in Breakfast Cereals — A Wake-Up Call

In early 2025, a consortium of European environmental organisations released a continent-wide set of laboratory results that stunned regulators and consumers alike. They tested a variety of cereal-based foods — breakfast cereals, breads, pastas, pastries, and flour — across 16 EU countries. The findings were unequivocal:

• More than 80% of samples contained TFA.
  
• Breakfast cereals were the most contaminated category.
  
• Some products contained hundreds of micrograms per kilogram — levels far beyond anything documented in drinking water or soil.
  

The implication? TFA is not merely drifting down in rainwater or washing into rivers. It is entering the food chain, probably through contaminated soil or irrigation water, and being taken up by plants themselves.

This raises an unsettling question for New Zealand: Are we assuming we are “clean and green” simply because we have not bothered to look?

Europe discovered TFA because they ran the tests. New Zealand has run none.

Could This Happen in New Zealand?

To answer that, we must examine three simple realities:

1. New Zealand uses fluorinated chemicals

Several pesticides approved for use in New Zealand contain fluorinated functional groups known to degrade internationally into TFA. We also import fluorinated industrial chemicals, refrigerants, coatings and household products that eventually find their way into the environment.

New Zealand’s EPA has taken welcome steps to manage long-chain PFAS, particularly in firefighting foams. But short-chain PFAS and PFAS breakdown products — including TFA — remain poorly characterised, scarcely regulated, and barely monitored.

2. TFA is extremely mobile

Because of its high solubility, TFA moves readily through soil into groundwater and then into rivers, lakes and irrigation systems. New Zealand’s intensive agriculture, combined with high rainfall, provides ideal conditions for rapid environmental transport.

If TFA accumulates in soils here, it would not remain there for long — it would move.

3. New Zealand grows and consumes large quantities of cereal products

If TFA contamination in Europe originated from irrigation, atmospheric deposition or in-soil degradation of pesticides, then the same pathways exist here. Many of the same crop species — wheat, barley, oats — would be at risk.

And yet, astonishingly, New Zealand does not appear to conduct routine testing for TFA in:

• drinking water
  
• groundwater
  
• rivers and lakes
  
• soils
  
• agricultural produce
  
• imported food products
  

Given the international findings, this is no longer acceptable.

Why TFA Matters for Freshwater and Outdoor Recreation

From our perspective, the risks go beyond food contamination. They intersect directly with the issues we champion:

Water Quality

TFA is highly soluble, persistent and resistant to treatment. Once it enters rivers, lakes and aquifers, it remains there. Standard water treatment plants cannot remove it. Boiling, filtering or aeration does nothing.

Freshwater Ecosystems

While long-term toxicity thresholds are still being studied, early research shows that TFA can affect aquatic organisms, including algae and freshwater invertebrates — the base of trout and native fish food chains.

Given how little we monitor freshwater for emerging contaminants, there is a real risk that significant TFA concentrations could accumulate unnoticed until ecological impacts become apparent.

Human Health

TFA does not bioaccumulate in fat the way traditional PFAS do, but it is nonetheless persistent in the body and has reported effects on:

• liver function
  
• thyroid balance
  
• kidney stress
  
• reproductive health
  

Regulators in Europe are now evaluating TFA for possible classification as a reprotoxic substance — a very serious designation.

New Zealand, meanwhile, has not even begun the conversation.

Outdoor Recreation and the “Clean Green” Brand

If TFA contamination is detected here in future — in waterways, soils, crops or animal tissues — New Zealand’s international environmental reputation would suffer, further undermining angling tourism, outdoor recreation and public trust in land-use management.

Avoiding that outcome requires proactive action now, not reactive panic later.

Learning From Past Mistakes

New Zealand has repeatedly been caught unprepared by environmental contaminants:

• We ignored nitrate trends in drinking water until levels became internationally high.
  
• We dismissed pesticide residues in groundwater until national surveys forced the issue.
  
• We overlooked PFAS contamination for decades until urgent mitigation became unavoidable.
  

Each time, authorities insisted everything was fine — until suddenly it wasn’t.

TFA must not become the next entry in this list.

What Authorities Must Now Answer

Given the international evidence, it is time for New Zealanders to demand straight answers from the agencies responsible for environmental health, freshwater protection and food safety.

We believe the following urgent questions must now be put to the Ministry for the Environment, Ministry for Primary Industries, the EPA, regional councils and the Ministry of Health:

1. Which fluorinated pesticides are currently approved for use in New Zealand — and do they have known TFA degradation pathways?
   
2. Has any testing ever been conducted in NZ for TFA in:
   • groundwater
     
   • drinking water
     
   • irrigation water
     
   • soils
     
   • crops
     
   • imported food products
     
   • freshwater ecosystems
     
3. Has the EPA assessed the environmental persistence, mobility and toxicity of TFA? If not, why not?
   
4. Does New Zealand’s food safety regime test for PFAS breakdown products other than PFOS, PFOA and related long-chain compounds?
   
5. Is any monitoring in place for TFA in regions with heavy application of fluorinated pesticides?
   
6. What steps will be taken to ensure that agricultural and horticultural products do not accumulate TFA similar to levels now documented in Europe?
   
7. Will New Zealand adopt a precautionary monitoring programme for TFA, given its proven persistence and increasing international concern?
   

These are reasonable questions. The public deserves reasonable answers.

A Precautionary Path Forward

We propose the following immediate actions:

1. A national audit of fluorinated pesticide use

Authorities must identify which agricultural chemicals used in New Zealand have degradation pathways leading to TFA or other short-chain PFAS.

2. Compulsory monitoring of TFA in freshwater and groundwater

At minimum, regular sampling should occur in:

• major aquifers
  
• irrigation schemes
  
• lowland rivers
  
• catchments with high pesticide use
  

3. Testing of cereal crops and imported breakfast cereals

Following the European findings, it is essential to test New Zealand-grown wheat, barley and oats for TFA presence — and to screen imported cereal products.

4. Transparent public reporting

As with PFAS, nitrate and pesticides in groundwater, the results should be publicly available and not buried in technical files.

5. Regulatory review

Should TFA be detected at concerning levels, New Zealand must review pesticide approvals and consider restrictions, substitutions or phase-outs of high-risk fluorinated compounds.

Conclusion: We Cannot Protect What We Refuse to Measure

The arrival of TFA as a global contaminant should be a turning point for New Zealand. We cannot afford to continue our pattern of reactive environmental management — waiting for an overseas crisis, then scrambling belatedly to determine whether it applies here.

TFA contamination in breakfast cereals is a warning sign, not an isolated curiosity. It reflects a wider, systemic issue: the long-term consequences of widespread fluorinated chemical use. Those consequences do not respect borders. They do not wait for regulatory comfort. And they do not disappear because a country fails to test for them.

New Zealand prides itself on its rivers, mountains, lakes and wholesome food. Those values will mean nothing if we allow “forever chemicals” to pass silently into our soils, waterways and food chains.

The question now is not whether TFA exists in Europe. It is whether New Zealand will ask the right questions before it is too late.

We urge the government, regulators and scientists of this country to treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves. Only through vigilance, transparency and precautionary action can we ensure that our freshwater, our environment and our people remain protected from contaminants we have not yet bothered to look for.