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.