User:Shawndouglas/sandbox/sublevel5

Title: What is the importance of a food and beverage testing laboratory to society?

Author for citation: Shawn E. Douglas

License for content: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Publication date: August 2022

Introduction

Humanity's focus on food and water security remains one of its most important tasks in the twenty-first century, particularly in the face of growing concerns about the negative ramifications of climate change. Without a continued focus on food and water security—including all the quality and safety assurances that come with it—many elements of the world population face a grim reality of insufficient food, limited access to clean water, and malnutrition.

In contrast to these stark realities (which are just as much about agricultural practices, societal and governmental practices, public health practices, and human approaches to climate change), much has admittedly improved in the way we ensure food and beverage security and safety, at least compared to times prior to the twentieth century. In fact, the laboratory and the science practiced in it have arguably played a significant role in better ensuring safe, quality food and beverages in our lives. However, the laboratory is only one part of an otherwise "complex adaptive system of governance" that is food safety, which in turn is only one part of a larger system dedicated to food and water security.

This brief topical article will examine how modern society benefits from a food and beverage testing laboratory. It will turn to history, statistical data, and description of the roles such labs play, demonstrating their overall value.

History of laboratories in food and beverage testing

Food, Hygiene, and the Laboratory. A Short History of Food Poisoning in Britain, circa 1850–1950 : https://academic.oup.com/shm/article-abstract/12/2/293/1649538 Feeding the World Today and Tomorrow: The Importance of Food Science and Technology: https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2010.00127.x

Milk certification and lab testing in late nineteenth century: https://books.google.com/books?id=aeGMDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover

FDA Food Safety Modernization Act

Food Safety 93 to current: https://books.google.com/books?id=LO7eDwAAQBAJ

Minor bits of history, plus food preservation: https://books.google.com/books?id=G2QL_dyS5YAC&pg=PA25

Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) Pillsbury, NASA, 1950s; International food safety: https://books.google.com/books?id=D00xd8qNUvYC&pg=PA1

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA): https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/10/food-labs-integral-to-changing-world-of-food-safety/ AND don't forget LAAF: https://www.limswiki.org/index.php/LII:FDA_Food_Safety_Modernization_Act_Final_Rule_on_Laboratory_Accreditation_for_Analyses_of_Foods:_Considerations_for_Labs_and_Informatics_Vendors

Related statistics

Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States - "All told, contaminated food causes 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year in the United States." : https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/index.html

Laboratory utilization statistics (2013): https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/10/food-labs-integral-to-changing-world-of-food-safety/

The roles a laboratory may have in the food and beverage 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.

R&D roles

The laboratory participating in these roles 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 is typically placed outside the manufacturing context 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 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.

Pre-manufacturing and manufacturing roles

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 vaguely similar fashion, though the manufacturer ideally uses a full set of best practices for food allergen management and testing that is confirming allergens (and correct labeling) from ingredient ordering to 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, but 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 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.

Post-production regulation and security roles

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 accountable for their production methods and obligations.

Conclusion

This brief topical article sought to answer "what is the importance of a food and beverage testing laboratory to society?" It notes that in particular,