With passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA will require test results for certain categories of food imports to be obtained from ISO 17025 accredited laboratories. While old news to much of the world, this is a significant change in the United States, where until FSMA was drafted, accredited laboratory testing was not an FDA requirement. This stance of the FDA will help push accreditation towards it being a baseline to demonstrate competence to deliver reliable and accurate results.

Associated with this approach, are a number of related factors linked to accreditation that now must be considered by the food laboratory testing industry. These are the need for the laboratory to utilize consistent and traceable reference materials and demonstration of proficiency in the testing activities to be included on their Scope of Accreditation. In food microbiology this usually means the use of certified reference cultures and recognized proficiency testing providers. A brief overview of the accrediting process will set the stage for the speakers: 1) the background and quality control activities involved in being a reference material producer, 2) the role that proficiency testing programs and schemes provide in demonstrating that the laboratory can produce good, reliable data; 3) how the implementation of these requirements impacts in a multi-site contract testing laboratory; and 4) a perspective of FSMA's impact from a state testing laboratory.

Presentations