[Viewpoint] A Closer Look at Laboratory Testing

A focus on food safety is nothing new for the industry, but with ever-increasing regulatory, consumer and media focus on both food safety and security, product and plant environmental testing has attained ever-greater significance.

As such, each time you send a sample to a laboratory for testing, you rely on that lab to detect anything which could affect the fitness of your product for consumption. You trust the accuracy and validity of its testing to stand up to a due-diligence investigation should you ever have to face court action. You place your brand into the hands of the lab every time you send a sample for testing.

Skim the Web pages of the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (www.fsis.usda.gov/Fsis_Recalls/) or the Food & Drug Administration (www.fda.gov/opacom/7alerts.html) on recalls, market withdrawals and safety alerts on any day and you will find that between the two agencies, notices are appearing on a close-to-daily basis on foods alone. These include pathogen contaminants (E. coli, botulism, Salmonella), pesticide residues, undeclared allergens and packaging contaminants of both domestic and international origin.

While the vast majority of these involve voluntary recalls by manufacturers, and no or few reported illnesses, any recall, consumer effect or media attention on a potential food safety issue can be costly to the company — in both dollars and reputation.

Detecting such potential hazards is the role of the testing laboratory — both contract and in-house. But how much do you really know about the laboratories into whose hands you place your company’s name and reputation? What happens to your sample between the time you send it for testing and you get the results? How do you determine if the results are indeed accurate and valid? And how do you select a contract laboratory in the first place…or decide what can or should be done in-house instead?

To answer these questions and more, this issue of Quality Assurance & Food Safety (QA) magazine takes A Closer Look at Labs to examine the role that the laboratories play in protecting your brand and reputation.

We toured two laboratories — ABC Research Corporation in Gainesville, Fla., and Rtech Laboratories, a business unit of Land O’Lakes in Minneapolis, Minn.; spoke with representatives from laboratories across the country; and visited with an accreditation body which tests the testing labs — the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) in Frederick, Md.

Our task was to look at the laboratories and testing from your viewpoint and ask the tough questions you’d ask yourself. Our purpose was to bring you an increased knowledge and understanding of the laboratories and testing to which you trust your name each day. Our goal was to assist you in making well-informed decisions as you work each day to earn the trust of your customers and end consumer; to provide a safe, secure and quality product.

We hope that you enjoy the articles of this special section, as well as all the articles in this issue, and that they bring you new information that helps you in your daily efforts toward quality assurance and food safety in our ever-evolving industry.

The author is staff editor of QA magazine.