Food safety laboratories are undergoing a significant shift as the food industry faces increasing pressure for speed, accuracy, and transparency. Traditional microbiological methods remain foundational, but they are often too slow to support today’s accelerated production cycles and complex supply chains. As a result, laboratories are adopting rapid microbiological methods, digital data systems, and artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making and reduce risk.
Whether the end consumer is a child snacking on peanut butter crackers or a dog chewing jerky treats, the hazards—and many of the prevention strategies—overlap far more than most realize. Understanding these connections can strengthen food safety across sectors, protecting both people and pets.
Panelists at the IAFP Conference “From Bench-top to Scale Up: The Unspoken Food Safety Challenges of Research and Development” session highlighted areas of regulatory and food safety risk during R&D, as well as potential solutions to prevent delays in bringing new products to market.
Given that an alarming amount of the baby food found on the market today contains dangerous concentrations of heavy metals, manufacturers must take measures to minimize the presence of cadmium, arsenic, lead and mercury in their products.
Food producers and consumers alike can implement several practices to prevent and/or reduce the incidence of contamination.
Isochoric freezing could change the carbon emissions and energy footprint of the food processing industry.
How advanced pesticide screening programs are keeping botanicals and supplements contaminant-free.
How LIMS helps meet ISO 17025 accreditation, assures reliable test results, and maximizes efficiency in food testing labs.
To increase levels of food safety and better protect brand reputation, food processors need detection technologies that can find much smaller metal foreign objects.
LAMP brings the benefit of a single assay protocol for testing all pathogens, enabling technicians to use the same protocol for all pathogen tests. This streamlined workflow involving minimal steps simplifies the process and reduces risk of human-caused error.
