The India Section of the Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC) International held its inaugural seminar - a platform for technical people to discuss analytical test methods and find a solution to common analytical problems - in Mumbai on Thursday.
At the seminar, Dr S S Ghonkrokta, director, enforcement, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), was the first speaker, and his topic was 'Food Safety and Analytical Challenges in India.'
He emphasised that FSSAI and AOAC should join hands to make sure everyone consumes safe food and establish a national food safety system in India.
"We have already issued about 5 lakh new licences, and are proud that Maharashtra is one of the states that is leading the way on the front," Dr Ghonkrokta said.
He spoke about how we have moved over the years from food adulteration to food safety.
"In fact, India needs to have a food control system, encompassing comprehensive food laws, inspection services and laboratory services in place. Currently, on an average, each state has just about 200 personnel handling the inspection function, and by the end of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, we hope each state would have hired about 10,000 qualified, trained, honest and efficient people to handle inspection," Dr Ghonkrokta observed.
There are a number of analytical requirements under the Food Safety and Standards Act, which came into effect from August 5 last year. These include issuing about 1.5 million licences and over 50 million registrations and conducting over two million annual audits; testing for compliance and quality; setting new targets for exports and measuring the actual exports against the set standards; handling claims about nutraceuticals and functional foods; research and development; surveillance and risk assessment.
"We will focus on the recognition and accreditation of laboratories, and setting up research institutions and referral food labs. Currently, there are just four referral food labs which, by virtue of their size, are not equipped to handle a large volume of samples. The target is 10 labs," said Dr Ghonkrokta, whose presentation also included a reference to Section 43 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
The Food Safety and Standards (Laboratory and Sample Analysis) Rules, 2011, stress on the need for notified labs for imports and referral labs.
"We plan to tackle these issues with a two-pronged strategy: a defensive strategy, which will focus on regulations and risk-based conformity to assessment process; and an offensive strategy, which will focus on a target market for exports and claims in the domestic market," Dr Ghonkrokta said.
Referral labs will be set up at the national and state levels. They will not only be microbiological, physical and chemical labs, but also radioactive labs and encompass organic genetically-modified food; pesticides; antibiotics; heavy metals; nutrient analysis; allergen testing; enzymes and hormones, mycotoxins, etc. In addition, labs will be set up at the state levels, and cluster levels at the district level.
The FSSAI also mandates lab approval schemes for food safety testing. These have to be accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and satisfy a set of tests and parameters.
It is also necessary to share data about samples with FSSAI and more importantly, make sure there is no conflict of interest with food business operators.
FSSAI has nominated 32 NABL-accredited labs on an ad-hoc basis; the target is about 80.
"AOAC and FSSAI could co-operate on a number of key areas, including validation of methods (especially with respect to novel foods); validation of the sample collection system; reducing the cost of analysis; reduction in test result variations; fixing the accuracy range; lab upgradation; achieving proficiency in quality assurance, and of course, human resource development," Dr Ghonkrokta concluded.
Mahesh Zagade, commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Maharashtra, spoke on the need to upgrade Indian laboratories to gear up for FSSA.
"We should not merely comply with FSSAI, but also question it. There should be a synergy of analytical chemistry and other fields like mathematics, software and engineering," he said.
Dr Sumit Sen is the United States advisor to the India Section of AOAC International. He is also a chemist technology-based expert; a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration's (USFDA) foreign inspection cadre, and the ex-president of AOAC's Southern California Section.
During his presentation, titled Introducing India Section of AOAC International, he spoke about the need for an AOAC consensus.
"It will help identify and assemble advisory panels and well-balanced stakeholders' panels, working groups and expert review panels; identify and gain consensus on method priorities, and achieve consensus of standard method performance requirements," Dr Sen said.
He enumerated the services, the India Section of the AOAC will render.
"We will provide the industry and academia networking opportunities; set standards that will, over a period of time, become known as perfect tested methods and official methods of analysis (OMA); publish journals containing topics of interest to the analytical community, and offer lab services with a specific focus on auditing and proficiency testing," he said.
Dr Deepa Bhajekar, MD, MicroChem Silliker, and president, India Section, AOAC International, introduced the board members of the body.
They include Dr Kaushik Banerjee, national fellow, National Research Centre for Grapes and president-elect, India Section, AOAC; Dr Krishnamurthy Balasubramanian, head, technical, MicroChem Silliker and secretary, India Section, AOAC, and Sunil Kulkarni, manager, marketing, India Food Section, Agilent Technologies India.
Dr Banerjee spoke about the objectives of the India Chapter of AOAC.
"We aim to bring AOAC closer to the Indian analytical community. This will establish regular communication between the two and help them understand each other's expectations; recognise the current analytical problems, and identify the analytical issues pertinent to India," he said.
Dr Banerjee's presentation touched upon a number of key questions.
"What methods are in practice; are the methodologies used in India equivalent to the internationally-practiced methods; is there an official method available, and if yes, is it fit for the purpose; answering these questions will be the AOAC India Section's endeavour," he said.
"Actually, there is no official method available. The implications of this are as follows: the methodology is questioned whenever there is a variation in the results of tests conducted in labs in India and those in the European Union (EU). The importers, who dictate terms, are the ones who invariably raise doubts. Then there is a lack of analytical methods for typical Indian matrices, such as okra, green chillies, drumsticks, curry leaves, etc. The AOAC method based on the QuECHers Technique is not adopted when controlling the export of fruit and vegetables from India," Dr Banerjee explained.
He added, "India has tried to adopt a method which is cheaper and fit for the purpose, but typical Indian food safety issues, such as monitoring the plant growth regulators, continue to exist."
"The Indian method has to be user-friendly (acceptable to lab technicians); financially viable; environmentally safe; simple (with respect to the use of instruments) and its performance should be known," Dr Banerjee said.
"Collaborative studies are a necessity. They impart confidence about test results; improve the international acceptability of test results, and improve analytical confidence in Indian tea, spices, egg and egg products, seafood and meat and meat products," he explained.
As far as proficiency testing is concerned, he said, "India lacks adequate proficiency testing programmes for a number of commodity-analyte combinations, and they are not upto the mark as far as international standards are concerned."
"There is often a conflict in the results of tests on export consignments from India in labs in EU member nations, and they raise doubts on the analytical techniques. Many a times, the consignments that arrive for testing in Indian labs contained semi-spoiled products, and their performance in the tests obviously gets affected," Dr Banerjee explained.
AOAC India, he explained, would act as an independent proficiency testing service provider to Indian labs, and organise need-based training programmes and workshops to bring Indian labs on par with international regulatory issues, guidelines, technology transfer, etc.
"The workshops could be on lab management; accreditation issues, and method verification," Dr Banerjee suggested.
He added, "India also needs need-based expert review panels for candidate methods to choose the best method. Only after a number of follow-up activities will it become an AOAC-approved method."
"AOAC must bring industry and academia together and promote knowledge sharing. In fact, it should act as a networking platform for the private and public sectors. Food safety and quality assurance are shared responsibilities, and the government, food industries, consumers and organisations should get involved," Dr Banerjee said.
Dr Balasubramanian spoke about the practical analytical issues faced by Indian labs.
"According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) estimates, if food products are rejected due to food safety issues, the resulting loss is worth over $100 million," he said.
The test methods and methods of analysis differ from country to country, he said, adding, "Harmonised international methods like AOAC are the need of the hour. Specific regulatory issues also need to be addressed."
He concluded his presentation saying that no official methods are available for food allergens, mycotoxins, etc.
Dr Dipankar Ghosh, director, environmental and food safety team, Thermo Fisher Scientific, San Jose, California, USA, spoke on targeted and non-targeted screening and quantitation of food contaminants using high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry.
It is a new approach to unknown analysis in food samples, which Zagade had also spoken about during his presentation.
"There are two methods of sample analysis: target analysis (which is a traditional method) and non-targeted analysis," Dr Ghosh said.
Kulkarni's topic was 'Mycotoxin Analysis: Challenges in Food Matrix and Best Approaches.'
Mycotoxins are toxic metabolic products from molds.
"Challenging food matrices include peanuts, coffee, cereals, dried fruit, milk, spices, fruit juices, wine, etc.," he said.
The seminar concluded with a discussion on high-throughput multi-component quantification of food residues using LC-MS/MS by Dr Manoj G Pillai, national manager, application support, ABSciex; and a summary of the day's presentations, titled 'A Bridge Between Public and Private Collaboration-AOAC' by Wayne Wargo of Abbott, USA.
At the seminar, Dr S S Ghonkrokta, director, enforcement, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), was the first speaker, and his topic was 'Food Safety and Analytical Challenges in India.'
He emphasised that FSSAI and AOAC should join hands to make sure everyone consumes safe food and establish a national food safety system in India.
"We have already issued about 5 lakh new licences, and are proud that Maharashtra is one of the states that is leading the way on the front," Dr Ghonkrokta said.
He spoke about how we have moved over the years from food adulteration to food safety.
"In fact, India needs to have a food control system, encompassing comprehensive food laws, inspection services and laboratory services in place. Currently, on an average, each state has just about 200 personnel handling the inspection function, and by the end of the Twelfth Five Year Plan, we hope each state would have hired about 10,000 qualified, trained, honest and efficient people to handle inspection," Dr Ghonkrokta observed.
There are a number of analytical requirements under the Food Safety and Standards Act, which came into effect from August 5 last year. These include issuing about 1.5 million licences and over 50 million registrations and conducting over two million annual audits; testing for compliance and quality; setting new targets for exports and measuring the actual exports against the set standards; handling claims about nutraceuticals and functional foods; research and development; surveillance and risk assessment.
"We will focus on the recognition and accreditation of laboratories, and setting up research institutions and referral food labs. Currently, there are just four referral food labs which, by virtue of their size, are not equipped to handle a large volume of samples. The target is 10 labs," said Dr Ghonkrokta, whose presentation also included a reference to Section 43 of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
The Food Safety and Standards (Laboratory and Sample Analysis) Rules, 2011, stress on the need for notified labs for imports and referral labs.
"We plan to tackle these issues with a two-pronged strategy: a defensive strategy, which will focus on regulations and risk-based conformity to assessment process; and an offensive strategy, which will focus on a target market for exports and claims in the domestic market," Dr Ghonkrokta said.
Referral labs will be set up at the national and state levels. They will not only be microbiological, physical and chemical labs, but also radioactive labs and encompass organic genetically-modified food; pesticides; antibiotics; heavy metals; nutrient analysis; allergen testing; enzymes and hormones, mycotoxins, etc. In addition, labs will be set up at the state levels, and cluster levels at the district level.
The FSSAI also mandates lab approval schemes for food safety testing. These have to be accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) and satisfy a set of tests and parameters.
It is also necessary to share data about samples with FSSAI and more importantly, make sure there is no conflict of interest with food business operators.
FSSAI has nominated 32 NABL-accredited labs on an ad-hoc basis; the target is about 80.
"AOAC and FSSAI could co-operate on a number of key areas, including validation of methods (especially with respect to novel foods); validation of the sample collection system; reducing the cost of analysis; reduction in test result variations; fixing the accuracy range; lab upgradation; achieving proficiency in quality assurance, and of course, human resource development," Dr Ghonkrokta concluded.
Mahesh Zagade, commissioner, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Maharashtra, spoke on the need to upgrade Indian laboratories to gear up for FSSA.
"We should not merely comply with FSSAI, but also question it. There should be a synergy of analytical chemistry and other fields like mathematics, software and engineering," he said.
Dr Sumit Sen is the United States advisor to the India Section of AOAC International. He is also a chemist technology-based expert; a member of the United States Food and Drug Administration's (USFDA) foreign inspection cadre, and the ex-president of AOAC's Southern California Section.
During his presentation, titled Introducing India Section of AOAC International, he spoke about the need for an AOAC consensus.
"It will help identify and assemble advisory panels and well-balanced stakeholders' panels, working groups and expert review panels; identify and gain consensus on method priorities, and achieve consensus of standard method performance requirements," Dr Sen said.
He enumerated the services, the India Section of the AOAC will render.
"We will provide the industry and academia networking opportunities; set standards that will, over a period of time, become known as perfect tested methods and official methods of analysis (OMA); publish journals containing topics of interest to the analytical community, and offer lab services with a specific focus on auditing and proficiency testing," he said.
Dr Deepa Bhajekar, MD, MicroChem Silliker, and president, India Section, AOAC International, introduced the board members of the body.
They include Dr Kaushik Banerjee, national fellow, National Research Centre for Grapes and president-elect, India Section, AOAC; Dr Krishnamurthy Balasubramanian, head, technical, MicroChem Silliker and secretary, India Section, AOAC, and Sunil Kulkarni, manager, marketing, India Food Section, Agilent Technologies India.
Dr Banerjee spoke about the objectives of the India Chapter of AOAC.
"We aim to bring AOAC closer to the Indian analytical community. This will establish regular communication between the two and help them understand each other's expectations; recognise the current analytical problems, and identify the analytical issues pertinent to India," he said.
Dr Banerjee's presentation touched upon a number of key questions.
"What methods are in practice; are the methodologies used in India equivalent to the internationally-practiced methods; is there an official method available, and if yes, is it fit for the purpose; answering these questions will be the AOAC India Section's endeavour," he said.
"Actually, there is no official method available. The implications of this are as follows: the methodology is questioned whenever there is a variation in the results of tests conducted in labs in India and those in the European Union (EU). The importers, who dictate terms, are the ones who invariably raise doubts. Then there is a lack of analytical methods for typical Indian matrices, such as okra, green chillies, drumsticks, curry leaves, etc. The AOAC method based on the QuECHers Technique is not adopted when controlling the export of fruit and vegetables from India," Dr Banerjee explained.
He added, "India has tried to adopt a method which is cheaper and fit for the purpose, but typical Indian food safety issues, such as monitoring the plant growth regulators, continue to exist."
"The Indian method has to be user-friendly (acceptable to lab technicians); financially viable; environmentally safe; simple (with respect to the use of instruments) and its performance should be known," Dr Banerjee said.
"Collaborative studies are a necessity. They impart confidence about test results; improve the international acceptability of test results, and improve analytical confidence in Indian tea, spices, egg and egg products, seafood and meat and meat products," he explained.
As far as proficiency testing is concerned, he said, "India lacks adequate proficiency testing programmes for a number of commodity-analyte combinations, and they are not upto the mark as far as international standards are concerned."
"There is often a conflict in the results of tests on export consignments from India in labs in EU member nations, and they raise doubts on the analytical techniques. Many a times, the consignments that arrive for testing in Indian labs contained semi-spoiled products, and their performance in the tests obviously gets affected," Dr Banerjee explained.
AOAC India, he explained, would act as an independent proficiency testing service provider to Indian labs, and organise need-based training programmes and workshops to bring Indian labs on par with international regulatory issues, guidelines, technology transfer, etc.
"The workshops could be on lab management; accreditation issues, and method verification," Dr Banerjee suggested.
He added, "India also needs need-based expert review panels for candidate methods to choose the best method. Only after a number of follow-up activities will it become an AOAC-approved method."
"AOAC must bring industry and academia together and promote knowledge sharing. In fact, it should act as a networking platform for the private and public sectors. Food safety and quality assurance are shared responsibilities, and the government, food industries, consumers and organisations should get involved," Dr Banerjee said.
Dr Balasubramanian spoke about the practical analytical issues faced by Indian labs.
"According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) estimates, if food products are rejected due to food safety issues, the resulting loss is worth over $100 million," he said.
The test methods and methods of analysis differ from country to country, he said, adding, "Harmonised international methods like AOAC are the need of the hour. Specific regulatory issues also need to be addressed."
He concluded his presentation saying that no official methods are available for food allergens, mycotoxins, etc.
Dr Dipankar Ghosh, director, environmental and food safety team, Thermo Fisher Scientific, San Jose, California, USA, spoke on targeted and non-targeted screening and quantitation of food contaminants using high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry.
It is a new approach to unknown analysis in food samples, which Zagade had also spoken about during his presentation.
"There are two methods of sample analysis: target analysis (which is a traditional method) and non-targeted analysis," Dr Ghosh said.
Kulkarni's topic was 'Mycotoxin Analysis: Challenges in Food Matrix and Best Approaches.'
Mycotoxins are toxic metabolic products from molds.
"Challenging food matrices include peanuts, coffee, cereals, dried fruit, milk, spices, fruit juices, wine, etc.," he said.
The seminar concluded with a discussion on high-throughput multi-component quantification of food residues using LC-MS/MS by Dr Manoj G Pillai, national manager, application support, ABSciex; and a summary of the day's presentations, titled 'A Bridge Between Public and Private Collaboration-AOAC' by Wayne Wargo of Abbott, USA.
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