Processed Food Testing

Processed food can be simply described as food that can be changed in any way from its natural state that includes washing, canning, freezing, or adding ingredients to it. Baking, cooking, or preparing it can also be termed as processing. It also refers to fortifying, preserving, enriching and various methods adopted during preparation. With increasing urban, young, and working population, processed food items are experiencing humongous demand in India and more likely to set huge demand in coming years too. Changing lifestyles of majority of urban population, food habits and organized food retail can be considered as major factors for growth in processed food industry.

Here come the positives of processed food:

Processed food can help people consume more nutrient-dense foods. Milk and juices are often fortified with calcium; vitamin A & D. Other food categories like cereal products, fats & oils, rice are part of fortification program run by FSSAI. Canned fruit is a good option when fresh fruit is not available. Processed food also serves preservative function, for example, pasteurizing milk and cheese lengthen their shelf life and vacuum packaging, novel processing technique can keep meat from spoiling. Some minimally processed food such as pre-cut vegetables like carrot, beans are quality convenience foods for working people with hectic schedules and ensure healthy eating. Hence processed foods offer multiple benefits to consumers. If people are really concerned about high sugar, saturated fat, trans fats and sodium quantities in processed food, one can refer to nutrition labels for low sugar, low fat and low sodium food claims, which can help to choose the best suitable processed food.

Safety Regulations and Quality Control

The term processed food covers thousands of food products found in every home, from simple bread and cheese to ready-made meals. The inclined consumer demand for variety of food products, results in constant exploration of the processed foods product range. Consequently, more sophisticated quality control methods are needed to ensure that every ingredient maintains its quality and safety through all processing stages, and that finished products are packaged and  stored safely. FSSAI regulates the processed food per product category with specified test parameters covering nutritional label, contaminants testing, and microbiological safety.

FSSAI has laid down standard for food labelling and packaging and the packaged processed food must comply with the requirements. USFDA also regulates the nutritional labelling requirements of processed food. Information related to allergens must be declared on the label as regulated by FSSAI, if food consists of or are made of the ingredients -cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt or their hybridized strains and products of these), crustacean and their products, milk and milk products, eggs and egg products, fish and fish products, groundnut tree nuts and their products, soybeans and their products, sulphite in concentrations of 10mg/kg or more.

Stability Studies for Processed Food

Shelf life studies helps in finding out the time period that a product may be stored without becoming unfit for consumption or sale. Shelf Life analysis helps in ascertaining the expiry for any packaged/processed food product. Eurofins offers both short term & long term stability studies for all kinds of processed. We carry out accelerated & real time studies based on ICH & WHO guidelines. Further accelerated studies can be carried out to check transport robustness.

Eurofins Testing Services

Eurofins can offer broad portfolio of quality and safety checks on all categories of processed food, including, but not limited to:

• Bread, bakery, flour and instant mixes
• Breakfast cereals, pasta and dry goods
• Cheese, yoghurt, butter, milk and dairy products
• Meat and poultry products, including sausages
• Fish and seafood products (prepared, smoked, dried, salted)
• Ready to eat meals, instant food, microwave dinners, and frozen food
• Baby food and infant formula
• Tinned fruits & vegetables
• Pickles, jams, preserves, and soups
• Canned meat and fish
• Sauces, spices, oil, and condiments
• Sweet and tasty ready to eat snacks
• Dried fruit and nuts
• Instant beverages

The Eurofins significance:

Eurofins team constantly try to ensure sophisticated and accurate quality checks for processed foods in terms of microbiological tests, nutritional compositions, detection of contaminants whether it be physical, chemical or biological by adopting standard protocols.

• Competence center with state-of-the-art equipment such as high- resolution GC, GC-MS, GCMSMS, FTIR, ELISA, HPLC, LC-MS/MS, ICP-MS & Real-time PCR
• Fast turn-around time (TAT)
• Local contact with a Global Network
• Participation in industry associations and regulatory bodies allowing early advice on potential food safety concerns
• Expert advice - testing schemes, on-site-check for hygiene and allergens, labelling advice and traceability
• Results you can rely on
• International presence

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