On the occasion of the opening of Thermo Fisher’s Food Safety Response Center in Dreieich, near Frankfurt, Germany in April 2010, FEI spoke to Gerry Broski, Director of Food Safety Marketing, Scientific Instruments at Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Q. The new Food Safety Response Center in Dreieich is a first for Thermo Fisher. What precisely is its role?
This lab is an innovative concept for the food safety industry. To my knowledge, there is no other laboratory in the industry with a mission quite as unique as the Thermo Scientific Food Safety Response Center. The specific role of the lab is to rapidly respond to an incident involving the chemical contamination of food by developing an analytical method to confirm the presence of an identified contaminant and making the method widely available to other labs responsible for food safety and testing. After opening in April 2010, the lab was recently activated to respond to the potential contamination of fish and shellfish resulting from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts estimate that testing of seafood in this area will likely continue for the next several years, and this emphasis on high volumes of testing requires analytical methods that are rapid and reliable.
Q. Was the setting up of the lab stimulated by a particular crisis in the food industry?
It was not a specific crisis that led to the investment in this laboratory, but a realization of the frequency and pattern of past events involving chemical contamination and the difficulty in responding quickly. The melamine crisis of 2008 may well be the watershed moment in economic adulteration and certainly was a consideration in the design of the lab.
Q. Why don’t routine food testing labs develop their own methods?
For more routine analysis, some labs may develop methods or modify existing methods. Other labs contract this type of method development. The uniqueness of the Food Safety Response Center is its ability to respond quickly with a method during a crisis. Food testing labs that provide routine analysis are generally not structured to undertake a major research and development effort in search of a new method.
Q. How do you learn about possible new food contamination scares?
Identifying emerging threats through news channels that we constantly monitor and engaging in a dialogue with leading food safety researchers and regulators give us access to information that provides a basis for deciding when the Food Safety Response Center should be activated. The Food Safety Response Center may also be activated at the request of a food producer or distributor, independent lab or a government agency.
Q. How do you decide on/prioritize which methods to work up?
We prioritize our efforts based on several criteria; first, the nature of the threat must be compelling and the source of contamination must be of a type that we can analyze using current capabilities. We also need to determine whether the threat is isolated or widespread. And finally, consideration must be given to the effect on public health.
Q. Does your method development effort include regulatory approval/submission, if necessary?
Regulatory approval may be an effective route toward widespread use and acceptance of a method. The analytical methods developed by the Food Safety Response Center will be designed to be accurate, reliable and able to be replicated in labs throughout the world – meeting or exceeding a number of regulatory standards.
Q. The FSRC has a global remit — what about differences in regulatory specificatrions in different countries?
We work closely with a number of government and regulatory entities throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Q. Once you have developed a method how will the food testing industry learn about the existence of the new method?
The method will be distributed widely and posted to a special area of our website (www.thermoscientific.com/fsrc). It will also be distributed internally to our applications scientists, technicians, sales and support personnel.
Q. Will they pay fees/royalties for the use of the method?
There is no fee associated with receiving any method developed by the Food Safety Response Center for detecting chemical contamination in food.
Q. What equipment/staffing/experience have you got in the FSRC?
The Food Safety Response Center is staffed by experienced chemists, each of whom is a specialist in a particular analytical technique. Employees have significant experience and training in food safety and food related research. The lab contains state-of-the-art Thermo Scientific analytical instruments.The methods of detection for specific contaminants and matrices will be optimized for GC, GC/MS, LC, LC/MS and ICP to provide the rapid and reliable results.
Q. After a new method is developed will you accept external samples for routine testing?
It is not anticipated that this type of support will be required. The methods from the Food Safety Response Center will be complete and include consumables listed by part number, so the learning curve will be short and the instructions straightforward. However the scientists of the Food Safety Response Center may visit other sites (labs) to train or facilitate use of a method.
