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At the Standards Development and International Harmonization: AOAC INTERNATIONAL Mid-Year Meeting on June 29-30, 2011, in Rockville, Maryland, USA, the Stakeholder Panel on Strategic Food Analytical Methods (SPSFAM) will begin building consensus on methodology that would impact the community and address issues or topics of interest to the stakeholders related to food, or strategic growth of the food industry. The following are initial areas of interest, as identified by an advisory panel: contaminants, flavonoids, antioxidants, and modernizing identification methods for raw ingredients. SPSFAM represents AOAC’s Organizational Affiliates (OAs), some of whom are the world’s largest food companies. The stakeholder panel, as well as the advisory panel, is chaired by Lou Anne Blanchard of Kraft Foods and Arti Arora of Coca-Cola. A major objective for the panel is building a working relationship between SPSFAM and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as other regulatory agencies. Key to this initiative is cooperation among various standards-setting organizations and regulatory agencies, so that AOAC members and customers can comply with multiple organizations’ requirements, which would add value for OAs. “AOAC has had for many years a strong participation from OAs globally,” said AOAC Executive Director James Bradford. “Now, AOAC is giving back to OAs, with this new initiative to empower the food industry to set standards. The scope is being determined by the OAs, and what is important to OAs and their companies.” Chairs for the topic-specific working groups are as follows: Flavonoids: Brian Schaneberg (Mars Botanical); Antioxidants: Blanchard; Contaminants: Blanchard; and Modernizing Methods for Raw Ingredients in Food: John Austad (Covance Laboratories). At the mid-year meeting in June 2011, working group chairs will provide an overview and outline of analytical challenges for each topic. As part of AOAC’s consensus-building process, working groups will develop standard method performance requirements, against which methods can be evaluated. It is expected that good methods resulting from the stakeholder panel and its working groups will undergo AOAC’s alternative path to achieving Official First Action status, in which an expert review panel can approve methods if enough acceptable data is available. “As a leader in standards development and conformity assessment, AOAC is investing in its future, with the goal of strengthening the Association’s value--as well as its brand--for members,” Bradford said. “By doing so, we can begin to serve our industry partners in better ways. OAs are key to AOAC initiatives and can set priorities and drive activities, ensuring that the Association is working on the most relevant issues. AOAC is providing industry with a powerful, compelling voice.” For more information, contact Dawn Frazier, senior director, membership and education, at dfrazier@aoac.org. Full coverage is scheduled for the May/June issue of Inside Laboratory Management.
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