Natural occurrence of citrinin in widely consumed traditional Chinese food red yeast rice, medicinal plants and their related products

► We investigated the occurrence of citrinin in Chinese food red yeast rice, medicinal plants and their related products. ► Out of a total of 109 samples, citrinin was detected in 31 samples ranging from 16.6 to 5253 μg/kg. ► All positive samples belonged to 59 red yeast rice and related products. ► None of the rest of 50 medicinal plants samples was found to contain citrinin. ► The positive samples were further confirmed using LC-ESI-MS/MS.