LIMS Q&A:What standards and regulations affect a food and beverage laboratory?

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Title: What standards and regulations affect a food and beverage laboratory?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date: November 2022

Introduction

Societies around the world have grown to expect and depend on high-quality, nutritious foods and beverages, whether coming directly from a farm or being produced by a food and beverage manufacturer. With the history of food and beverage safety having a somewhat checkered past until the early twentieth century, this expectation hasn't always been easy to meet. However, with better understanding of food safety and greater efforts to standardize and regulate it, governments and producers have improved food quality and safety into the twenty-first century. Yet any assurances coming from these efforts to standardize and regulate are dependent upon rigorous and validated methods not only in the production facility but also in any laboratory making analyses for the facility.

This topical article will briefly examine the standards, regulations, guidance, and other factors globally driven by not only the demand for safer foods and beverages, but also that in many cases dictate what and how quality activities are conducted towards ensuring food safety around the world inside and outside the food and beverage laboratory.


Globally recognized food safety standards

Template:Globally recognized food safety standards


Regulations and laws around the world

Template:Food safety regulations and laws around the world


Other influencing factors

Template:Other influencing factors of food safety and quality


Conclusion

This brief topical article sought to answer "what standards and regulations affect a food and beverage laboratory?" What becomes evident from attempting to answer this question is that while many standards and regulations don't exclusively apply to food and beverage laboratories, many such labs are affected indirectly. In order for the food and beverage industry to be a safer, more well-trusted industry, it must incorporate quality control and standardized manufacturing methods into its efforts, which in turn require laboratory analyses to ensure meeting those quality and manufacturing standards. These industry labs may also have their own analytical, credentialing, and record keeping requirements, derived either directly from regulations and standards affecting the labs, or secondarily as a means to accurately measure quality and safety with the broader producer. Many such standards may be internationally applicable, such as the ISO 22000 series of standards, in recognition of a growing push to harmonize food safety laws, regulations, and standards on a global scale.[1] As a result, the regulations found in countries like Japan and the United States may have many similarities, while still recognizing there are cultural, political, and functional differences among them that dictate important differences.[2] From this brief analysis, we learn of the more important standards affecting the food and beverage industry, and we discover representative examples of regulation around the world, which tend to be driven by the prior-mentioned standards.

References

  1. "International Cooperation on Food Safety". U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 3 November 2022. https://www.fda.gov/food/international-interagency-coordination/international-cooperation-food-safety. Retrieved 16 November 2022. 
  2. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named BuzbyFood03