Food News

Among the more than 100 participants from 13 countries was our food chemist Ms Jenny Schönbeck from AGROLAB LUFA. She reports on this year's laboratory managers' meeting for residue monitoring in fruit, vegetables and potatoes.

There were numerous interesting and technically demanding presentations. They covered quality assurance, analytics and current legal developments. They offered valuable insights into innovations in methods, complex requirements for analytics and trends in laboratory practice. Of course, we share this information internally with our colleagues at all laboratory locations who are also involved in residue analysis and enjoy QS recognition. Our internal information system ‘AGROLAB WIKI’ serves as a modern platform for colleagues to exchange information.

First, the results of the laboratory tests were presented and discussed. The aim is not to evaluate the individual laboratories. The discussion focuses on why there were deviations in the results. This is important in order to identify methodological weaknesses and take into account experience from other laboratory comparison tests, e.g. how stable the analytes are in the test mixtures.

In the afternoon, Dr Manol Roussev, expert and auditor for residue analysis, spoke about his experiences from two years of QS audits. Even though the last QA audit in Kiel went very well, it is interesting to find out what was criticised at other laboratories. The question of what is meant by a sample, for example, must be clearly clarified. Does this refer to the 10 kg of apples delivered or the 10 g laboratory sample produced from them in several steps?

Accurate and traceable documentation of each individual step is essential for every analysis. Our powerful AGROLAB Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) helps us with this, with numerous automated plausibility routines that identify potential sources of error.

There was a lively collegial exchange in the discussions on the fringes of the conference. Although the QA laboratories compete with each other, we all strive for the highest quality and reliability in our analyses.

YOUR PLUS: We have a common goal: uncompromising food safety and 100% customer satisfaction.

Author: Jenny Schönbeck, Customer Service AGROLAB LUFA