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1. Introduction to food and beverage laboratories

A proper introduction goes here ...

1.1 Food and beverage labs, then and now

The history of laboratory-based food and beverage tasting is a scattered one, with little being documented about foodborne illness and food safety until the nineteenth century. With a better understanding of bacteria and their relationship to disease, however, more was being said about the topic by the mid- to late-1800s. In the U.S. Northeast during the 1860s, recognition was growing concerning the threat that tainted milk originating from dairy cows being singularly fed distillery byproducts had to human health. Not only was the milk generated from such cows thin and low in nutrients, but it also was adulterated with questionable substances to give it a better appearance. This resulted in many children and adults falling ill or dying from consuming the product. The efforts of Dr. Henry Coit and others in the late 1800s to develop a certification program for milk—which included laboratory testing among other activities—eventually helped plant the seeds for a national food and beverage safety program.

Roughly around the same time, during the 1880s, Britain saw more public health awareness develop in regards to digestive bacterial infections. "As deadlier infections retreated," argues social historian Anne Hardy, "food poisoning became an increasing concern of local and national health authorities, who sought both to raise public awareness of the condition as illness, and to regulate and improve food handling practices." This led to further efforts from public health laboratories to promote the reporting and tracking of food poisoning cases by the 1940s.

With the recognition of bacterial and other forms of contamination occurring in foodstuffs, beverages, and ingredients, as well as growing acknowledgement of the detrimental health effects of dangerous adulterations with toxic substances, additional progress was made in the realm of regulating and testing produced food and beverages. Events of interest along the way include:

• By 1880, the first of many municipal laboratories dedicated to testing food and beverage adulteration came into use in France. A focus was made on watered-down wines early on, but Frances's municipal food safety labs quickly began addressing other foods, beverages, and ingredients.
• The Pure Food and Drug Act and Beef Inspection Act were passed in 1906 in response to food quality issues in packing plants, on farms, and other areas of food production.
• In 1927, the U.S. Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (shortened to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or FDA not long after) was formed to better enforce the Pure Food Act.
• By 1945, Clostridium perfringens was being identified as a common cause of foodborne illness, and today it is recognized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of the top five provocateurs of foodborne illness.
• The seeds of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) quality control method were planted in 1959, when Pillsbury began working with NASA to ensure safe foods for astronauts. The value of Pillsbury and NASA's methodology became apparent to the food and beverage industry by 1972, and other organizations began adopting HACCP for food safety.
• The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 brought standardized, more accurate labeling to food and beverages.
• The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 mandated HACCP for most food processors and improved pesticide level calculations.
• FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was enacted in 2011, giving the FDA more enforcement authority and tools to improve the backbone of the U.S. food and water supply.
• In December 2021, the Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Foods (LAAF) amendment to the FSMA was approved, providing for an accreditation program for laboratories wanting to further participate in the critical role of ensuring the safety of the U.S. food supply through the "testing of food in certain circumstances."

This progression of scientific discovery and regulatory action has surely managed to reduce risks to U.S. food and beverage consumers, though not without complication and complexity. As the U.S. population has grown over the past 100 years, it has become more difficult to have a sufficient number of inspectors, for example, to examine every production facility or farm and all they do, necessitating a risk assessment approach to food and beverage safety. As such, the laboratory is undoubtedly a critical component of risk-based safety assessments of food and beverage products.

1.2 Laboratory roles and testing in the industry

Laboratories directly and tangentially related to the food and beverage industry play a number of roles, depending on where they're situated. These roles prove to be important in the greater scheme of industry activities, in turn providing a number of benefits to society. As gleaned from prior discussion, as well as other sources, these laboratory roles can be broadly broken into three categories: research and development (R&D), pre-manufacturing and manufacturing, and post-production regulation and security. Additionally, each of these categories has its own types of laboratory testing.

Food and beverage laboratories tap into numerous scientific disciplines for the work they do. Among the various roles these labs serve, disciplines such as biochemistry, biotechnology, chemical engineering, chemistry, fermentation science, materials science, microbiology, molecular gastronomy, and nutrition and food science are applied. As such, a diverse skillset is typically required by the food and beverage scientist, requiring not only hard skills in microbiology, biochemistry, and fermentation, but also the flexibility and nimbleness to apply those skills to an industry with a rapidly changing consumer dynamic.

Although slightly dated, past surveys of food processors have largely shown a majority of testing occurring within the processor facility, with outsourcing to a third-party lab becoming a growing trend. A 2013 Advantage Business Media survey of food processors "found 32.5 percent use both in-house and outside labs; 28.9 percent use only in-house testing, and 24.1 percent send samples only to outside labs," with 14.5 percent saying they didn’t require testing. A 2017 survey by Strategic Consulting, Inc., published in Food Safety Magazine, saw the number of labs sending samples only to outside labs increase, compared to the 2013 survey, with 28% of respondents saying they outsourced all samples. Similar surveys in 2020 reinforced the view that outsourcing was a growing trend, with more non-pathogen testing getting outsourced along with pathogen testing.

This increase may not be surprising given reports that third-party contract testing laboratories were increasingly being used for food quality and safety testing. A 2013 Strategic Consulting, Inc. report cited the rise in third-party labs was "in response to the growing complexity, cost, and volume of testing required by food producers and retailers." Another concern that may be driving outsourcing of at least microbial laboratory testing is regulatory pressure concerning pathogenic organisms in the production facility, and by extension out of the internally housed lab, though there may be a strong preference to contract with third-party labs in close proximity to the plant to better ensure desired turnaround times. However, veterans in the food and beverage industry may view such outsourcing concerns as minimal, particularly when a facility's processes and quality mechanisms are appropriately reviewed, maintained, and enforced.

In regards to what kind of testing has historically been occurring in the industry, we turn back to that 2013 Advantage Business Media survey. Additional statistics from that survey revealed that 70.6 percent of respondents were testing for quality, 57.7 percent were testing for consistency, and 56.5 percent were conducting food safety tests for pathogens. Some 29.4 percent were testing for packaging accuracy claims, and 23.5 percent were testing for the presence of reported and unreported allergens. More recent survey data is difficult to find, so it's not clear how these numbers compare to the realities of 2022. We can say that at least as of 2020, pathogen testing remained vital, with testing of Listeria proving a fast-growing subcategory of pathogen testing, primarily for environmental monitoring of the production facility. A 2020 survey by Strategic Consulting, Inc. further indicated that the volume of microbiology testing is growing at roughly five percent, while pathogen testing volume is growing at roughly six to seven percent, adding that "outsourcing is driving the volume of tests being sent to commercial labs by as much as 10 percent." The same surveyor increased those percentages the following year.

Finally, Strategic Consulting's Bob Ferguson added that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is seeing an uptick in food and beverage testing as of 2021:

As processors outsource their samples, PCR seems to be more frequently selected as the analytical method used than it was when the samples were analyzed in-plant. This possibility certainly makes sense. PCR requires expensive instrumentation and technical expertise to analyze samples properly. Every commercial lab will have a level of analyst capabilities and infrastructure that allows them to use PCR. Commercial labs will also have a high incentive to recommend the use of PCR to optimize the throughput of their instruments.

So far, we've spoken broadly of the food and beverage laboratory, the roles it can play in the industry, and the testing found in it. The following subsections more closely examine the three roles labs can play, as well as the testing found within those roles.

1.2.1 R&D roles and testing

The laboratory participating in this role is performing one or more tasks that relate to the development or improvement of a food, beverage, additive, or spice. This often leads to a commercial formulation, which has the "necessary details required to scale and produce your [food or beverage] in a consistent, efficient, and safe manner." Even packaging solutions are targets for R&D labs in the food and beverage industry.

The R&D lab may appear outside the manufacturing facility proper, but not necessarily always. Some manufacturing companies may have an entire research complex dedicated to creating and improving some aspect of their products. Other companies may take their R&D to a third-party lab dedicated to conducting development and formulation activities for manufacturers. Food and beverage research activities aren't confined to manufacturers, however. Some higher education institutions, such as the Hartwick College Center for Craft Food & Beverage, provide laboratory-based research and development opportunities to students engaging in work-study programs, often in partnership with some other commercial enterprise.

Food and beverage R&D labs may work towards improving packaging, testing a product's shelf life (i.e., stability), conducting flavor or aroma analysis, developing and innovating foodstuffs, reformulating existing products, and researching genetic modifications to ingredients. The end user benefits by having fresher foods that are culinarily pleasing, more nutritious, and safer for consumption.

The following types of testing may be associated with the R&D role:

Overall food innovation and development: International Center for Food Chain and Network Research's Schiefer and Deiters note that the food and beverage industry as a whole faces a number of significant challenges today, including economic and noneconomic changes, consumer lifestyle changes, global increases in food consumption, degradation and loss of cropland, and societal changes to attitudes concerning sustainability. These types of challenges require a food and beverage industry that is more agile and innovative, one that is making impactful breakthroughs to improve the quality and range of products, increasing the capacity for making products, replacing outdated products, developing more flexible or sustainable processes, and improving health and safety. Given the broad scope of efforts involved, the laboratory services for such impactful R&D efforts can vary widely depending on the goal. Improving the flavor of plant-based meat substitutes, for example, comes with somewhat different analytical techniques and disciplinary requirements than say improving the three-dimensional food printing of said meat substitutes.

Aroma/flavor analysis and formulation: Here the concept of "sensomic" study, an approach to describing the sensory properties of foodstuffs at a molecular level, plays an increasingly important role. This involves analytical techniques such as gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, and spectrophotometry, used in conjunction with chemometric data analysis to isolate and act upon volatile compounds from one or more samples. Aroma tends to be a more difficult concept to tackle as we've identified more than a 1,000 volatile compounds in a singular substance such as cooked meats and coffees (though typically only a small number of those compounds make a significant contribution to the overall perceived aroma), which in turn adds further complexity to overall perception of flavor. This gives laboratory researchers formulating a product for a distinct flavor profile more than a few challenges in, for example, putting together a successful mapping of chemical composition to flavor perception.

Genetic modification for improved yields and nutrition: The preface of Westin Carrillo's book Biotechnology and Food Production summarizes this activity well. "Biotechnology can be used in many ways to achieve higher yields; for example, by improving flowering capacity and increasing photosynthesis or the intake of nutritive elements," he says. "In the long term, genetic engineering will also help to increase production of the most valuable components of specific crops" like cassava and rice, as well as modify their amino acid composition in order to increase their otherwise deficient nutritional value. As this suggests, however, knowledge and skills in genetic analysis, modification, and expression are required, in turn requiring the equipment and skill for genetic sequencing, microbial transformation, genetic use restriction technology (GURT), Northern or Western blotting, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), etc. Admittedly, this type of R&D may fall more firmly in the hands of agriculture businesses than food and beverage businesses themselves. However, a few food and beverage business may bring their genetic modification R&D efforts in-house as an overall effort to improve a majority of its products.

Nutritional reformulation: As various scientific understandings improve and societies shift their desires and perspectives towards processed foods, so too do the formulations used by food processors. Food scientist and author Maurice O'Sullivan describes four primary drivers for these types of reformulations:

• Society improves its scientific understanding of the major consumption-related diseases affecting human civilization, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.
• The population at large becomes more aware of scientists' greater understanding of consumption-related diseases.
• Food producers inevitably see reason to make changes to their foods based on both the scientific and customer-based factors that affect sales of the producers' products.
• Government further provides incentive to the producer to modify their product, through industry collaboration or outright regulation and enforcement activities.

O'Sullivan argues that the three most significant components of food that need to be modified are salt, fat, and sugar. Balancing these in reformulations is indeed challenging for chemical, sensory, and other reasons. Adjusting salt levels, for example, requires chemical knowledge about salt reduction's effects on meat's shelf life and what substitutes or additives can be used to balance out the reduced salt content. As such, reformulation requires a broad array of analytical techniques and industry knowledge, varying based upon the component sought out for change.

Stability, cycle, and challenge testing: As hinted at in the prior subsection, salt plays an important role in the shelf life of meats and other foodstuffs. However, it also can be a leading contributor to cardiovascular complications. Finding a balance between a more nutritious product and a more shelf-stable product proves to be quite tricky. This is one of several conundrums the stability testing laboratory faces in the food and beverage industry. Multiple deteriorative catalysts can influence the shelf life of a product, from microbiological contaminants and chemical deterioration to storage conditions and the packaging itself. As such, there are multiple approaches to those catalysts, from introducing additives to improving the packaging. The analytical techniques applied in stability, cycle, and challenge testing will vary based on, to a large degree, the product matrix and its chemical composition. Microbiological testing is sure to be involved, particularly in challenge testing, which simulates what could happen to a product if contaminated by a microorganism and placed in a representative storage condition. Calorimetry, spectrophotometry, spectroscopy, and hyperspectral imaging can be used to properly assess color, which has been shown to be a good gauge of food quality. Other test types that may be used include water content, texture, viscosity, dispersibility, glass transition, and gas chromatography.

Packaging analysis and extractable and leachable testing: Materials that contact food and beverages receive special regulatory consideration in various parts of the world. This includes alloys, bioplastics, can coatings, glass, metals, regenerated cellulose materials, paper, paperboard, plastics, printing inks, rubber, textiles, waxes, and woods. As such, attempting to break new ground in food and beverage packaging development can be a tricky matter. Concerns of chemicals and elements that can be extracted or leach into food contact materials add another layer of complexity to developing and choosing packaging materials for foods and beverages. This requires extractable and leachable testing at various phases of product development to ensure the packaging selected during formulation is safe and effective. Extractable and leachable testing for packaging could involve a number of techniques ranging from gas and liquid chromatography to ion chromatography and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.

1.2.2 Pre-manufacturing and manufacturing roles and testing

The laboratory participating in these roles is performing one or more tasks that relate to the preparative (i.e., pre-manufacturing) or quality control (i.e., manufacturing) tasks of food and beverage production. Preparative work such as caloric and nutritional analysis may happen in a variety of contexts, from inside the R&D lab to in the manufacturing facility's lab itself, if it has one. This work may also be conducted by a third-party lab, or it may even be performed using non-laboratory techniques such as food composition database analysis. However, caloric and nutritional testing—in conjunction with meeting regulatory-driven labeling requirements—still lands firmly in the role of pre-manufacturing activity, definitively after commercial formulation and packing requirements have been finalized but before the formal manufacturing process has begun. Allergen testing works in a similar fashion, though the manufacturer ideally uses a full set of best practices for food allergen management and testing, from confirming allergens (and correct labeling) from ingredients ordered to performing final production line cleanup (e.g., when a new allergen-free commercial formulation is being made or an unintended contamination has occurred). The end user benefits from these caloric, nutritional, and allergen analysis activities not only through the provision of a more transparent window into what they are consuming; these laboratory activities also can better ensure end users' attempts at maintaining their own good health.

Finally, laboratory testing can also be found along the production chain in the manufacturing facility itself. This type of testing is couched as quality control testing, primarily, or as quality assurance, secondarily. Some of this analysis may be integrated into the production workflow, as with x-ray inspection. Fluorescence sensing technologies are also useful for contaminant testing, though they are largely limited to laboratory use, with hopes they may become more relevant for inspection at the point of production. This move to "novel, rapid, and non-destructive" methods of testing both in the lab and in the production facility appears to be a growing trend, loosening the concept of the "quality control laboratory" as an entity in the production facility. Regardless of analytical location, the quality control lab provides benefits to society by being a critical component of an overall quality management system that better ensures the safety of those consuming the final product.

The following types of testing may be associated with the pre-manufacturing and manufacturing role:

Allergen, calorie, and nutrition testing: From label accuracy to consumer safety, this type of testing is critical to food and beverage manufacturers. Caloric and nutritional testing—in conjunction with meeting regulation-driven labeling requirements—lands firmly in the role of pre-manufacturing activity, most certainly after commercial formulation and packing requirements have been finalized but before the formal manufacturing process has begun. Allergen testing works in a similar fashion, though the manufacturer ideally uses a full set of best practices for food allergen management and testing, from confirming allergens (and correct labeling) from ingredients ordered to performing final production line cleanup (e.g., when a new allergen-free commercial formulation is being made or an unintended contamination has occurred). This role will usually require laboratory analytical techniques such as calorimetry, laser scanning confocal microscopy, immunoassays, and mass spectrometry. Note, however, that non-laboratory techniques such as food composition database analysis are also used to evaluate the nutritional content of products that aren't heavily processed.

Quality control testing: A food or beverage product's launch success hinges on many variables; if one variable is off, it may very well be rejected by the consumer. Producers invest significantly in a product they believe in, requiring assurances along the way that it will have its best chance of success. The producer will want to ensure high-quality raw ingredients, high-quality equipment, an effective processing layout, and high customer satisfaction. A well-implemented quality management system (QMS) plays a major role in ensuring those requirements, and by extension that includes a type of testing couched as quality control testing, primarily, or as quality assurance testing, secondarily. Many aspects of food and beverage production require high levels of quality, and as such, the type of analytical testing that takes place will vary, sometimes significantly, depending upon the associated risk. Are microbiological, physiological, or chemical risks being managed? These and other questions will determine the laboratory approach to quality, which is in turn ideally reflected in the QMS.

1.2.3 Post-production regulation and security roles and testing

The laboratory participating in these roles is performing one or more tasks that relate to the post-production examination of foods and beverages for regulatory, security, or accreditation purposes. This type of testing examines raw ingredients, consumable products, and packaging found not only in a production facility but also in locations such as shipping docks, farms, grocery stores, and more. Labs are often third parties accrediting a producer to a set of standards, ensuring regulatory compliance, conducting authenticity and adulteration testing, conducting security checks at borders, and applying contamination testing as part of an overall effort to track down the source of a foodborne illness. In the last case, the lab may not even be a traditional "food and beverage" lab but rather a public health laboratory, highlighting in full the human safety elements associated with our food and water supplies. The human safety element is also seen in government labs such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service's (FSIS) Field Service Laboratories, which "coordinate and conduct laboratory analytical services in support of the Agency's farm-to-table strategies in the disciplines of chemistry, microbiology, and pathology for food safety in meat, poultry, and egg products." In addition to ensuring a safer food supply, society also benefits from these and similar labs by better holding producers legally accountable for their production methods and obligations.

The following types of testing may be associated with the post-production regulation and security role:

Authenticity and adulteration testing: A variety of local, regional, national, and international entities (e.g., Operation OPSON, E.U. Food Fraud Network, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection) are responsible for detecting and preventing violations of food supply chain laws and regulations across national and international borders, while also collecting evidence for investigation and prosecution. "To support these regulatory and commercial initiatives," says Gerard Downey of the Teagasc Food Research Centre, "research scientists have devoted considerable resources to the development of analytical techniques to identify foods or food ingredients that are in breach of labeling requirement and may consequently be adulterated." Among these techniques are DNA fingerprinting; visible, ultraviolet, infrared, fluorescence emission, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy; mass spectrometry; isotopic analysis; chromatography; polymerase chain reaction; differential scanning calorimetry; chemometric; and "electric nose and tongue" techniques.

Accreditation-led testing: At the end of 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration amended the Food Safety Modernization ACT (FSMA) to include the Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Foods (LAAF) rule, which mandates laboratory "testing of food in certain circumstances" be performed by LAAF-accredited laboratories. This accreditation is optional and designed for those accreditation bodies and laboratories that have been or are seeking to be be recognized by the FDA as able to LAAF-accredit or be LAAF-accredited for the testing needs of the program. LAAF's "certain circumstances" include not only regulatory-based testing of specific sprouts, eggs, and water, but also certain foods being considered for import into the country. LAAF represents one of several legal and regulatory forces driving accreditation of food and beverage laboratories to a higher standard. It also means greater potential for more testing opportunities for the third-party food and beverage lab wishing to expand into enforcement and security roles. The type of testing they conduct will already mirror those of other roles mentioned prior, but with greater emphasis on meeting stricter testing requirements.

1.2.4 Tangential laboratory work

The following tangential laboratory roles aren't necessarily found directly in the food and beverage facility. However, some level of laboratory work is required in these roles, which intersect with the food and beverage industry in some capacity.

Processing equipment design, monitoring, and sanitation: "Sanitation provides the hygienic conditions required to produce safe food," say Ho and Sandoval in chapter seven of Food Safety Engineering. "Improper sanitation of equipment can potentially introduce hazardous contamination to food and enhance pathogen harborage in the food-processing environment." They note the value of sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs) to the production facility, which dictate sanitation methods and frequencies, monitoring methods, and record keeping methods. These SSOPs are not only driven by good manufacturing practice (GMP) but also appropriate and effective laboratory testing. That foundation of laboratory testing has occurred historically with the experience of food and beverage producers and those engineering and standardizing hygienic solutions for the industry. Combined, these industry and laboratory experiences have driven regulations and standards on hygienic design throughout the world. Broadly speaking, this has culminated in a set of "fundamental hygienic requirements for product contact surfaces and food equipment," ranging from physical and chemical properties such as being nontoxic, corrosion-resistant, and non-absorbent, to mechanical properties such as being durable and smooth, and operational properties such as being cleanable and low-maintenance. In turn, these properties require laboratory and engineering knowledge about metals, alloys, plastics, and many other materials. Here we find multi-disciplinary knowledge in materials science, microbiology, chemistry, physics, and more, implying a corresponding necessity for knowledge on a wide variety of testing methods.

Public health and clinical diagnostics for foodborne illness: While public health and clinical diagnostic laboratories are indeed of a different ilk, they are undoubtedly intertwined with the food and beverage industry. With millions of people getting sick and thousands hospitalized and dying from foodborne diseases each year in the U.S. alone, this fact becomes clearer. When the food and beverage industry's SSOP- and QMS-related activities go awry—knowingly or unknowingly—or if the consumer does not follow proper precautions with the foods and beverages they consume, public health and clinical laboratories may get involved in tracking the source of the pathogen or treating the foodborne illness, respectively. As previous discussion has noted, the interest of public health is at the foundation of the historical and regulatory development of the modern food and beverage industry. In the U.S., the presence of these labs is characterized by efforts such as FoodNet, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) program that conducts "active surveillance; surveys of laboratories, physicians, and the general population; and population-based epidemiologic studies" for roughly 15 percent of the U.S. population. As a public health tool, FoodNet helps track rates of illness from foodborne pathogens. Through its Diagnostic Laboratory Practices Tool, the public health tool extends into the clinical diagnostics realm, recruiting nearly 700 of those labs to report on their testing practices in regards to select enteric pathogens. From there, one can glean the test methods and specimen submissions being conducted.

1.3 Safety and quality in the food and beverage industry

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