IJCA - Volume 3 - Flipbook - Page 9
2024 | Volume 3, Issue 1
7
Observations on the Value of Laboratory
Samples in Food Safety Testing
By Jesse L. Calvillo, Head of New Initiatives, Analytica Alimentaria GmbH; and
Udo Lampe, Managing Director, Analytica Alimentaria GmbH
-ABSTRACT-
DOI: 10.55459/IJCA/v3i1/JC.UL
This paper discusses critical parameters that contribute to or detract from the value of analytical testing
samples in the context of food safety risk assessments. A basic framework is proposed for assigning value to
analytical results considering scientific validity, interpretability, and impact.
Keywords: Food safety, Food testing, Multiresidue pesticide analysis, Microbiological testing, Contaminants testing, Risk
assessment, Risk mitigation, Laboratory sample, Field sampling, ISO/IEC 17025
Introduction
The global food safety testing market is projected
to exceed 27 billion USD by 2025 [1]. This represents
only a fraction of a percent of the expected 10.8
trillion USD in revenue to be generated through the
trade of over 2,800 billion kilograms of food next
year [2]. Laboratory testing is an essential tool used
throughout the food supply chain to verify conformity
with food safety regulations and toxicological limits,
but analytical results are often poorly understood or
misinterpreted. Nonetheless, testing is foundational
in food safety and consumer protection.
While there are many other tools that can also be
used to buttress food safety throughout the supply
chain—inspections, audits, third-party certifications,
Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) or
Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls
(HARPC) plans, etc.—the use of testing is almost
always included in holistic risk-based preventive
approaches. In some cases, as with complex systems
like agricultural production, or a lack of transparency
during import/export trading through intermediaries,
testing may be the only tool available to assess
specific food safety risks. Nevertheless, in all cases,
the integrity of the collected, manipulated, and tested
sample must remain intact for the analytical results
to be interpreted in a meaningful way.
When we do not fully conceptualize the value
of a sample, we can fail to assign it appropriate
worth considering the tangible and intangible risks
addressed by the testing activity. In practice, it is
common to assign too much value to a meaningless
sample (“some information is better than none”)
or too little value to a meaningful preventive action
(“why test at all if results are usually negative?”).
In this paper, we provide an overview of common
failures that negatively impact the value of laboratory
samples in food safety testing and propose a simple
framework for considering the full worth of a sample
in a more comprehensive fashion.
Common Critical Failures Affecting
Scienti昀椀c Validity
A fair evaluation of sample value must consider the ways
in which a testing activity may inadvertently be rendered
meaningless. In the following section, we enumerate
several commonly observed points of concern.
REPRESENTATIVITY
Testing can take many forms, each appropriate for its
goal. A packing house might test as part of its HACCP
strategy (control testing), a buyer may test before
trading (for regulatory compliance), a producer may test
prior to harvesting (to prevent the economic risk of a
buyer rejecting their harvested lot), and so on. Actors
in the supply chain might test for process veri昀椀cation
or in the context of dispute resolution; regulators may
test to monitor trends in industry practices; laboratories
may test to evaluate interlaboratory performance. One
cannot exhaustively list all possible circumstances,
objectives, and relevant parameters which can come
into play when designing and executing a testing
strategy, but by far the most common scenarios require
the test to be representative.
