Characteristics of an Excellent Food Safety Testing Procedure

The food safety testing procedure must possess certain standard characteristics to prove its efficiency and give accurate results.

Fremont, CA: Putting food safety in jeopardy can result in death. Governments all across the world lose money every year as a result of food safety concerns. Humans need to have access to a clean, healthy, and long-term food supply. The food industry has developed a set of food safety testing protocols to ensure the safety of the food supply. When conducting a real test procedure, a lot is on the line. False-negative results from a poorly designed food safety testing procedure can lead to the discharge of potentially contaminated finished products. As a result, to be considered effective, food safety tests must be standardized and have specific characteristics.

Here are some of the characteristics an excellent food safety procedure must have:

Accuracy

For clarity, the results of a food safety analysis must be able to read above the permitted food safety criteria of a parameter while still providing accurate readings. For simplicity of use, the testing technique must be able to produce results that are not ambiguous and easily distinguishable. The test's main goal is defeated when a testing technique yields a wide range of outcomes.

Specificity

A food safety test must be able to identify the contamination it is looking for. A broad range of food safety tests can be perplexing at times, resulting in an inaccurate diagnosis. If a business wants to use multi-target food safety testing methods, it must make sure its test procedures have appropriate markers to measure the target it wants to achieve. Specificity also means that the food safety test must not react with other food substances, as this could result in a false-positive result.

Establishment

Regulatory bodies and concerned organizations have established food safety tests and the standard for their acceptable results. Any divergence from these guidelines must be documented in the food safety management system manual.