Development of Fit for Purpose Methods for Chemical Contaminants

Limits of detection for methods targeting food contaminants and adulterants have quickly decreased from ppthousands in the 1950ies, to ppm and ppb in the 70ies and 80ies, to ppt and ppq in the 90 and 2000. The question to be asked is if a very low detection limit is always helpful, or if it can create problems. The presentation will be looking at some key examples, including chloramphenicol, glyphosate, acrylamide, perchlorate, as well as food allergens and gluten. It will put the new and lower detection levels in perspective with customers expectations and industry efforts to obtain goods below the LoD of the target analyte. It will look at the constantly increasing cost for laboratories due to the disproportional increase in equipment cost. The presentation will also look at the way media report, and how governments present results and findings of toxicological studies. It will discuss consumer perception and the idea of zero-risk products.