In early October, AOAC INTERNATIONAL joined around 600 food safety professionals, including many representing food manufacturer and packaging plant laboratories, at the Food Safety Consortium in Illinois.
Safe Quality Food (SQF) certified labs now need to meet new training requirements for certification, which includes proficiency testing. AOAC’s Proficiency Testing programs meet SQF certification training requirements (SQF Quality Code Edition 8 Checklist Section 2.9.2.3), and also other GFSI certifications.
The concept of proficiency testing and its role in certification are new to the labs that do the testing, and also to the trainers and auditors. Staff in the AOAC booth were able to to talk face to face with trainers and auditors focused on SQF and other GFSI recognized certifications for labs, to explain the role of proficiency testing, and to work with individual lab representatives to identify the proficiency testing program that meets their needs. AOAC’s Analytical Laboratory Accreditation Criteria Committee (ALACC) guide was part of the display.
The Food Safety Consortium this year was co-located with the Cannabis Quality Conference & Expo. AOAC’s Cannabis Analytical Science Program (CASP) was a part of two presentations given at the meeting.
