During the 2019 AOAC INTERNATIONAL Annual Meeting and Exposition in Denver, Colorado, AOAC and the Nordic Committee on Food Analysis (NMKL) signed an Agreement of Cooperation to work together on evaluation protocols and selection of independent testing laboratories. This allows AOAC and NMKL, and their respective certification programs, to jointly develop and use common evaluation protocols.
NMKL was established in 1947 and consists of chemists, microbiologists, sensory analysts and statisticians from the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. NordVal International, which reviews and certifies proprietary methods, was incorporated in NMKL in 2007. There is a national committee of appointed experts in each of the Nordic countries.
The agreement will benefit method developers, specifically test kit companies, who are seeking recognition from AOAC and NMKL. “These joint AOAC-NMKL protocols mean method developers will avoid having to collect data twice, once for each organization,” said Dave Schmidt, AOAC INTERNATIONAL Executive Director. “Method developers will be able to conduct testing once at one laboratory, and the data will be applicable to both AOAC and NMKL.”
“Scientists will have more methods to choose from,” added NMKL subcommittee chair Hilde Skår Norli of NordVal International. “For laboratories, the benefit is that they will not need to validate methods themselves – they will have already validated methods.”
