Food Forensics

Consumers, regulators and companies have higher demands for safer food and product quality. This is reflected in the more stringent customer product specifications and new regulations issued across the world. Analytical tools are used in the analysis of feed and food for monitoring contamination and disease to assure food safety and food security.

There is two types of analytical methods: screening tests and confirmatory tests. Screening tests will give a strong indication that there is some form of contaminant present, whilst confirmatory tests gives indisputable proof that there is some from of contaminant present. Analytical methods may be qualitative or quantitative.

There is a wide range of laboratory methods used in food safety, including:

Mass Spectrometry	High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
Gas Chromatography	Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR)
Cell Culture	Bioimaging
Biosensors	Microfluidics
Western Blotting	Microarrays
Bioassays

What we would like you to do

Please answer the following questions in the comments section below:

• Have you heard of any of these techniques before?

• If so, what is your knowledge of them?