The Inspection of Food Products

2002-10-14

Making better use of human and financial resources is a challenge to which most organizations can relate. In the arena of public health and safety that challenge is confounded: there is no acceptable margin of error when it comes to the inspection of food products. Through partnerships with the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), regulatory authorities like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are able to benefit from SCC's expertise in conformity assessment, while realizing cost savings and maintaining required levels of scrutiny.

Testing for antibiotic, drug and hormone residues in meat, microbial pathogens, allergens and pesticide residues in food and other threats to the safety of the food we eat is the job of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The CFIA is responsible for delivering all federal inspection services related to food and the protection of animal and plant health in Canada. Recently the size of the job has been getting bigger - last year alone the CFIA increased its budget for residue testing substantially. A significant portion of these resources were used to contract routine testing for residues to private labs, which can do the work for less than the cost of the CFIA expanding to meet the increased demand. To make sure that the tests done in private labs meet the same standard as those done by the agency itself, the CFIA partnered with the Standards Council.

In 1998, the CFIA and the Standards Council agreed to cooperate in accrediting non-CFIA laboratories that carry out tests on food, animal feeds and fertilizer. All laboratories doing this testing must be accredited under the Standards Council's Program for the Accreditation of Laboratories (PALCAN) in the Program Speciality Area for Agriculture and Food Products. The CFIA provides technical expertise, and the Standards Council provides the quality expertise and handles the accreditation process. The Standards Council also works with other experts to accredit the CFIA's own labs under PALCAN.

It's becoming the norm around the world for labs that do the kind of testing the CFIA does to have third-party audited quality assurance systems, says Tom Beaver, Executive Director of Corporate Audit and Review at the CFIA. These systems add another level of protection for public health, and also help secure the credibility of the organization.

"It's better to have good, transparent, open systems with a good deal of oversight because you can lose your credibility very quickly and it takes a long time to get it back," says Mr. Beaver. "To have a body like the Standards Council involved in the accreditation process gives our labs a high degree of credibility, both domestically and internationally."

For the CFIA, which on occasion is involved with food recalls, credibility is especially important from a public health and legal standpoint. "There are on occasion serious implications," says Mr. Beaver, and when that happens it's essential to have a third party confirm that the CFIA's lab system work well and produces credible test results.

Beaver says the agency is currently in discussions with the Standards Council about expanding the accreditation process to include the CFIA's inspection program and other areas where the agency may want to pursue third-party oversight.

Click here for more information on PALCAN.

More information about the CFIA

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