Standards for World Food Trade

Food safety is an issue that affects everyone in the world. Almost every week, it seems there is a new food related recall happening somewhere around the globe.

While much of the attention is currently directed at tainted products from specific locations, the need to monitor foods and ingredients is now truly global as food products are imported and exported virtually everywhere. Globalization, increasingly stringent import standards and consumer demand for safe food made with known and expected ingredients are driving tremendous progress as the list of components to be tested grows.

As one of the world’s largest food importers, the EU exerts a major influence on food safety testing globally. The EU Commission has named food safety a top priority, and published a White Paper on Food Safety to ensure food products are safe at every step, "from farm to fork." This includes feed production, primary production, processing, storage, transportation and retail sale. Producers and supply chains in those countries including China, Indonesia, Thailand and New Zealand must conform to the EU standards, hence influencing food quality standards around the world.

There are increasingly stringent import standards in other countries such as Japan, which exporters such as China, the EU and the US must comply to export food. Countries in Asia are also increasingly establishing quality regulations for food produced for in-country consumption.



One of the biggest challenges for food testing laboratories today is the need to continually acquire methods and instruments to detect new compounds as issues arise. Different countries have different approaches to food safety testing, but generally there are three main types of laboratories concerned with food safety testing—independent contract labs, commercial labs (connected with food manufacturers, importers/exporters), and government labs.

These labs test for a wide range of compounds depending on their local import/export rules and in-country regulations. Some common compounds that are tested for include:

• Pesticides, which protect food from insects while it's being grown,
but can be harmful to humans if ingested in high doses.
• Fatty acid methyl Esters (FAMEs), which are an important measure
of food quality and healthfulness. The human body needs essential
fatty acids for optimal health and wellbeing, so FAMEs are tested
to ensure food quality.
• Veterinary Drugs, which are commonly administered to livestock
and poultry to prevent and/or treat illness and also can be used to
enhance growth. Residues of these drugs may be found in milk,
eggs, fish and meat. As a result, government agencies around the
world use strict surveillance and monitoring programs to prevent
unsafe levels of these drugs from reaching consumers.
• Mycotoxins, which are widely regarded as some of the most
serious naturally occurring toxins that can contaminate our food
supply. This has led to legislation setting stringent permissible
limits on this important class of compounds.
• Additives, which are used to enhance the shelf life, color, texture
and flavor of a variety of foods, but must also be proven to be safe,
effective and measurable before being allowed in food products.
• Metals, which occur in many foods, either naturally or as a result
of pollution, can be important nutrients, but higher quantities and
other metals can be highly toxic.

The key to addressing the changing requirements of the global food testing industry is to always stay on top of the latest trends and issues and develop systems and applications that meet the latest requirements.
Technical companies and experts need to continuously update their expertise in food safety testing. This can be achieved by capturing new knowledge and perspectives from around the world directly from government agencies, food industry laboratories and industry experts, and transforming this knowledge into innovative and timely products and services that keep the world’s food supply safe.

Instrumental
Being equipped with analytical solutions that cover a full spectrum of food safety issues is a good start. There are three main categories of instruments for target and non-target compounds to test food ingredients and finished products for quality and safety:

• Gas Chromatography (GC) and Liquid Chromatography
(LC) are used to separate mixtures into their individual
components. These techniques can often be used on their
own to screen food products for prohibited compounds.
The GC is the instrument of choice as the sample can
be vaporized without too much difficulty. LC is useful for
separating non-volatile and thermally fragile molecules.

• For more complex mixtures or when more information
is required, GC or LC is often used in conjunction
with a Mass Spectrometer (MS), which is particularly
useful for identifying unknown compounds and
determining the amount of each substance.

• Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP/MS) is
used to specifically detect trace levels of metals in samples.