Food Monitoring Lab Requirements & System Implications

1. Food MonitoringLab Requirements & System Implications Shaun Kennedy Associate Director National Center for Food Protection & Defense Center for Animal Health & Food Safety University of Minnesota June 9, 2005

2. Food Testing Objectives • Food quality • Food safety • Process and cost control • Nutritional content • Identity verification

3. Required Laboratory Capabilities • Chemical composition/nutrition • Wet chemistry • Chemical characterization • Microbiological characterization

4. Required Laboratory Capabilities • Identity verification • Molecular verification • Microbiological verification • Genetic verification

5. Required Laboratory Capabilities • Food safety assessment • Atomic identification • Molecular identification • Organism identification/typing • Toxicology

6. Fluidic workstation Beckman Biomek FX Taqman ABI 7900HT RealTime PCR Wide Range of Capabilities Needed • Atomic Adsorption Spectroscopy (AA) • Gas Chromatography (GC) • High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) • Enzyme Linked Immunosorbant Assay (ELISA) • Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) • Enzyme Linked Fluorescent Assay (ELFA) • Reverse Passive Latex Agglutination (RLPA) • Hydrophobic Grid Membrane Fluorescence (HGMF) • High Pressure Liquid Chromotography (HPLC) • Adenosine Triphosphate Luminescence (ATP)

7. Food Monitoring Approaches • Firm level • Quality, cost and process control internal drivers • Regulatory compliance and safety internal/external drivers • Methods must fit into the production management plan • Speed • Specificity

8. Food Monitoring Approaches • Regulatory level • Compliance/safety confirmation key focus area • Incident investigation/attribution critical • Not a distribution control option for most foods

9. Food Safety: Control of Hazards Reasonably Likely to Occur

10. Contamination Testing Approaches • Probable/anticipated contaminant focus • Known potential contaminants • Generic testing techniques • Chemical/biochemical kits • Agent specific testing techniques • Chemical/biochemical kits • High end diagnostics • High specificity and high sensitivity

11. Food Protection and Defense:Control of Low Likelihood, Severe Impact Events

12. Contamination Testing Approaches • Unanticipated/intentional contamination • “Finger printing” the only realistic control oriented approach • Potentially expensive • Limited applicability due to normal variability • Likely not identifiable until after outbreak detection

13. Challenges For Food Monitoring • Goal is to prevent distribution of contaminated food • Usually only realistic if done at firm level • Microorganism testing usually too slow • Culture and rapid methods still 48-72 hours • Chemical methods feasible if the contaminant is known

14. The Lettuce Timeline Remaining LettuceDisposed Of Consumption Stops? Harvest/Processing In Distribution First Illness Consumed In Home In Retail Note: If not identified on thefood, epidemiologicalinvestigation >>14 days Detection Enrichment Recall Initiated Detection Started Pathogen Identified

15. Food Monitoring Laboratories • Critical link in controlling unintentional and intentional contamination • Technology limited for interventional control in many cases • Pushing some responsibility to producers critical for speed of detection • Intentional contamination a more significant challenge