As the testing methodology conquers the three decade milestone, John Wadie at 3M Food Safety talks about how food safety testing has evolved, the role of Petrifilm, and the future of food safety testing against the backdrop of FSMA.
Prof. P C Vasavada provides a preview of his upcoming presentation at the Food Safety Consortium, in which he will speak about food safety testing trends, and discuss approaches for testing of food and food plant environment, emphasizing microbial and other significant food hazards.
“Food defense is different from preventive controls and food defense cannot be prescriptive—it needs to be tied to a facility-specific risk evaluation,” says Shannon Cooksey, Senior Director at the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
Jordan Shaw, Microbiology Quality Manager for Eurofins US , talks about ISO accreditation, importance of lab design, dealing with hot samples, and practical challenges that food safety testing labs commonly encounter.
Adopting a couple different methods of verification, such as ATP swabs and microbial testing, done in a couple dozen strategic locations throughout your plant, should suffice to verify that your plant has been properly cleaned and sanitized, says 3M Food Safety’s Camila Gadotti.
“A good training program needs to address why are we doing this, what is the reason and rationale behind the training. The WHY is as important as WHAT we need to do. Often times, trainers are great auditors, but bad trainers.” – Eurofins’ Gary Smith.
Microbiological Method Validation: The Elephant in the Lab
Although commonly overlooked, microbiological method validation studies are the linchpins of entire quality programs, and method validations done without rigor are crippling our industry’s ability to truly ensure the quality and safety of foods on a daily basis.
False positive results (in which a sample that does not contain pathogens is incorrectly shown as positive) are a nuisance. But false negative test results—which fail to detect true pathogenic organisms in the sample—are just not unacceptable.
From real time PCR to today’s next-generation sequencing, evolving molecular diagnostic technologies are shaping how food is tested and innovation in food development.
Why are LIMS solutions important against the backdrop of increasing testing and regulation in the food industry? – An interview with Core Informatics’ Anthony Uzzo.
