Reasons for food Analysis
Analysis of food and drink is a major
activity for the government as well as industry - and a very important part of
product development and quality assurance. Food analysis is required for a wide
variety of reasons - from testing suitability for purpose, through checking shelf-life or authenticity, to assuring legal compliance. It
is important to use the correct analytical tool in order to get meaningful
answers to questions. Apart from the well known food analysis areas such as chemical and microbiological analyses, needs extensive expertise in food testing including the analysis of the physical properties of foods, the identification of chemical, microbiological and physical contaminants (e.g. glass, insects, stones and metal), determining whether a food is what its label says it is, and the evaluation of how a product tastes and what the consumer thinks of it. In addition to the given reasons
in the previous article, there are many other different reasons to analyze the
foods that are manufactured for the purpose of human consumption. The main
reasons are given below in the text.
Authenticity
The price of certain foods is dictated by
the quality of the ingredients that they contain. For example, a packet of
premium coffee may claim that the coffee beans are from Columbia, or the label
of an expensive wine may claim that it was produced in a certain region, using
a certain type of grapes in a particular year. How do we verify these claims?
There are many instances in the past where manufacturers have made false claims
about the authenticity of their products in order to get a higher price. It is
therefore important to have analytical techniques that can be used to test the
authenticity of certain food components, to ensure that consumers are not the
victims of economic fraud and that competition among food manufacturers is
fair.
Food Inspection and Grading
Any government has a food inspection
and grading service that routinely analyses the properties of food
products to ensure that they meet the appropriate laws and regulations. Hence,
both government agencies and food manufacturers need analytical techniques to
provide the appropriate information about food properties. The most important
criteria for this type of test are often the accuracy of the measurements and
the use of an official method. Any particular government has many of the
official analytical techniques developed to analyze foods, and has specified
which techniques must be used to analyze certain food components for labeling
purposes. Techniques have been chosen which provide accurate and reliable
results, but which are relatively simple and inexpensive to perform.
Food Safety
One of the most important reasons for
analyzing foods from both the consumers and the manufacturer’s standpoint is to
ensure that they are safe. It would be economically disastrous, as well as
being rather unpleasant to consumers, if a food manufacturer sold a product
that was harmful or toxic. A food may be considered to be unsafe because it
contains harmful microorganisms (e.g., Listeria, Salmonella), toxic chemicals
(e.g., pesticides, herbicides) or extraneous matter (e.g., glass,
wood, metal, insect matter). It is therefore important that food
manufacturers do everything they can to ensure that these harmful substances
are not present, or that they are effectively eliminated before the food is
consumed. This can be achieved by following good manufacturing practice regulations
specified by the government for specific food products and by having analytical
techniques that are capable of detecting harmful substances. In many situations
it is important to use analytical techniques that have a high
sensitivity, i.e., that can reliably detect low levels of harmful
material. Food manufacturers and government laboratories routinely analyze food
products to ensure that they do not contain harmful substances and that the
food production facility is operating correctly.
Nutritional Labeling
In 1990, the US government passed the
Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (NLEA), which revised the regulations
pertaining to the nutritional labeling of foods, and made it mandatory for
almost all food products to have standardized nutritional labels. One of the
major reasons for introducing these regulations was so that consumers could
make informed choices about their diet. Nutritional labels state the total
calorific value of the food, as well as total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol,
sodium, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, sugars, protein, vitamins, calcium and
iron. The label may also contain information about nutrient content claims
(such as low fat low sodium high fiber fat free
etc), although government regulations stipulate the minimum or maximum
amounts of specific food components that a food must contain if it is to be
given one of these nutrient content descriptors. The label may also
contain certain FDA approved health claims based on links between specific food
components and certain diseases (e.g., calcium and osteoporosis, sodium
and high blood pressure, soluble fiber and heart disease, and cholesterol and
heart disease). The information provided on the label can be used by consumers
to plan a nutritious and balanced diet, to avoid over consumption of food
components linked with health problems, and to encourage greater consumption of
foods that are beneficial to health.
Quality Control
The food industry is highly competitive and
food manufacturers are continually trying to increase their market-share and
profits. To do this they must ensure that their products are of higher
quality, less expensive, and more desirable than their competitors,
whilst ensuring that they are safe and nutritious. To meet
these rigorous standards food manufacturers need analytical techniques to
analyze food materials before, during and after the manufacturing process to
ensure that the final product meets the desired standards. In a food factory
one starts with a number of different raw materials, processes them in a
certain manner (e.g. heat, cool, mix, dry), packages them for consumption
and then stores them. The food is then transported to a warehouse or retailer
where it is sold for consumption.
One of the most important concerns of the
food manufacturer is to produce a final product that consistently has the same
overall properties, i.e. appearance, texture, flavor and shelf life.
When we purchase a particular food product we expect its properties to be the
same (or very similar) to previous times, and not to vary from
purchase-to-purchase. Ideally, a food manufacture wants to take the raw
ingredients, process them in a certain way and produce a product with specific
desirable properties. Unfortunately, the properties of the raw ingredients and
the processing conditions vary from time to time which causes the properties of
the final product to vary, often in an unpredictable way. How can food
manufacturers control these variations? Firstly, they can understand the
role that different food ingredients and processing operations play in
determining the final properties of foods, so that they can rationally control
the manufacturing process to produce a final product with consistent
properties. This type of information can be established through research
and development work (see later). Secondly, they can monitor the
properties of foods during production to ensure that they are meeting the
specified requirements, and if a problem is detected during the production
process, appropriate actions can be taken to maintain final product quality.
Characterization of Raw Materials
Manufacturers measure the properties of
incoming raw materials to ensure that they meet certain minimum standards of
quality that have previously been defined by the manufacturer. If these
standards are not met the manufacturer rejects the material. Even when a batch
of raw materials has been accepted, variations in its properties might lead to
changes in the properties of the final product. By analyzing the raw materials
it is often possible to predict their subsequent behavior during processing so
that the processing conditions can be altered to produce a final product with
the desired properties. For example, the color of potato chips depends on the
concentration of reducing sugars in the potatoes that they are manufactured
from: the higher the concentration, the browner the potato chips. Thus it is
necessary to have an analytical technique to measure the concentration of
reducing sugars in the potatoes so that the frying conditions can be altered to
produce the optimum colored potato chip.
Monitoring of Food Properties during Processing
It is advantageous for food manufacturers
to be able to measure the properties of foods during processing. Thus, if any
problem develops, then it can be quickly detected, and the process adjusted to
compensate for it. This helps to improve the overall quality of a food and to
reduce the amount of material and time wasted. For example, if a manufacturer
were producing a salad dressing product and the oil content became too high or
too low where they would want to adjust the processing conditions to eliminate
this problem. Traditionally, samples are removed from the process and tested in
a quality assurance laboratory. This procedure is often fairly time-consuming
and means that some of the product is usually wasted before a particular
problem becomes apparent. For this reason, there is an increasing tendency in
the food industry to use analytical techniques which are capable of rapidly
measuring the properties of foods on-line, without having to remove a sample
from the process. These techniques allow problems to be determined much more
quickly and therefore lead to improved product quality and less waste. The
ideal criteria for an on-line technique is that it be capable of rapid and
precise measurements, it is non-intrusive, it is nondestructive and that it can
be automated.
Characterization of Final Product
Once the product has been made it is
important to analyze its properties to ensure that it meets the appropriate
legal and labeling requirements, that it is safe, and that it is of high
quality. It is also important to ensure that it retains its desirable properties
up to the time when it is consumed. A system known as Hazard Analysis and
Critical Control Point (HACCP) has been developed, whose aim is to
systematically identify the ingredients or processes that may cause problems
(hazard analysis), assign locations (critical control points) within the
manufacturing process where the properties of the food must be measured to
ensure that safety and quality are maintained, and to specify the appropriate
action to take if a problem is identified. The type of analytical technique
required to carry out the analysis is often specified. In addition, the
manufacturer must keep detailed documentation of the performance and results of
these tests. HACCP was initially developed for safety testing of foods, now
it is widely use in other food safety and quality assurance systems as core
such as ISO 22000, FSCC 22000, BRC, IFS, etc.
Research and Development
In recent years, there have been
significant changes in the preferences of consumers for foods that are
healthier, higher quality, lower cost and more exotic. Individual food
manufacturers must respond rapidly to these changes in order to remain
competitive within the food industry. To meet these demands food manufacturers
often employ a number of scientists whose primary objective is to carry out
research that will lead to the development of new products, the improvement of
existing products and the reduction of manufacturing costs.
Many scientists working in universities,
government research laboratories and large food companies carry out basic
research. Experiments are designed to provide information that leads to a
better understanding of the role that different ingredients and processing
operations play in determining the overall properties of foods. Research is
mainly directed towards investigating the structure and interaction of food
ingredients, and how they are effected by changes in environment, such as
temperature, pressure and mechanical agitation. Basic research tends to be
carried out on simple model systems with well-defined compositions and
properties, rather than real foods with complex compositions and structures, so
that the researchers can focus on particular aspects of the
system. Scientists working for food companies or ingredient suppliers
usually carry out product development. Food Scientists working in this
area use their knowledge of food ingredients and processing operations to
improve the properties of existing products or to develop new products. In
practice, there is a great deal of overlap between basic research and product
development, with the basic researchers providing information that can be used
by the product developers to rationally optimize food composition and
properties. In both fundamental research and product development
analytical techniques are needed to characterize the overall properties of
foods (e.g., color, texture, flavor, shelf-life etc.), to ascertain
the role that each ingredient plays in determining the overall properties of
foods, and to determine how the properties of foods are affected by various
processing conditions (e.g., storage, heating, mixing, freezing).
Reference
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/regulatory-compliance/compliance-guides-index
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