Why you Need Quality Control Food Testing for Food Safety
Quality control
food testing is required for testing food products to ensure food safety and
public health. Quality control food testing laboratories also make sure that
the products comply with the domestic and international standards. Since the
food industry is quite competitive, food manufacturers have to ensure that their
products are of high quality, safe and wholesome. To ensure high quality and to
meet the standards, food testing laboratories must carry out testing or food
materials before, during and after processing.
So whether it is raw materials, processes or packaging and storing the
quality control testing laboratory will analyse foods at all stages.
Consistency in products
Food manufacturers
have to provide food products that are consistent and have the desired
properties associated with that food product. Consumers expect that the appearance, texture, flavour of the food
product does not vary but is the same as the previous purchase. However, properties
of the raw materials and the processing conditions may vary and this causes
variation in the final product. Quality
control food
testing
laboratories can help food manufacturers to rationally control manufacturing
properties by understanding the role of various ingredients processing operations monitoring operations during production appropriate
actions to be taken to solve issues.
Raw material
analysis
Manufacturers
need to ensure that the raw materials meet the minimum quality standards.
However, sometimes despite the standards being met the properties of the raw
materials vary. These variations could lead to variations in the final product. Quality control food
testing laboratories help food manufacturers understand and predict the
subsequent behaviour during processing so that of the processing conditions are
altered it could bring about the desired results. Some foods can have colour changes
but these are controlled by reducing sugars, especially in potatoes. A food
testing analysis can determine how much concentration of sugars is required to
get the right colour.
Monitoring
properties during food manufacturing
Food
manufacturers use the services of quality control testing laboratories to
monitor and measure the properties so if a need is felt processing can be
adjusted and the problem resolved. This reduces time and material wastage
maintains food quality. During process monitoring samples are traditionally removed
and tested in a laboratory. Since the process needs to halt while the sample is
being tested, so food manufacturers use laboratories that use testing methods
that can quickly measure properties of food on line without removing the
samples.
Final product
analysis
The final
product is analysed for regulatory and labelling requirements to ensure that
the food is safe and of high quality. Food testing laboratories also test the
final products to check and see that the desirable properties in the food
products are present right up to the time when it is consumed. In case a
problem is detected then the food testing laboratories carry out food testing
according to specified methods for that particular problem. Analytical methods
are one of the mainstays of food safety programmes. Food manufacturers safely keep
the documented analysis test results with them.
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