FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Claudia Costabile
301-816-8314 | cac@usp.org
Nantes, France — March 2, 2017 — The global authenticity competence center of EUROFINS group, a global leader in bio-analytical testing, and The U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), a scientific non-profit organization that sets standards for the identity, strength, quality, and purity of medicines, food ingredients, and dietary supplements, today announced they have signed a collaboration agreement. Eurofins and USP will combine expertise to assist the food sector with specific tools for combatting food fraud.
The agreement includes several areas of cooperation, including exploration of new analytical testing methods, training and consulting to help the food sector assess the vulnerability of supply chains, and other services based on global analytical and food fraud data to inform stakeholders of emerging issues. The organizations made the announcement at the 2017 Global Food Safety Conference currently underway in Houston.
EUROFINS, while celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, is recognized for its unparalleled expertise in the development of analytical methods for food fraud detection since its creation and has not ceased to innovate to stay at the forefront of technology and also providing certification audits against GFSI schemes (i.e. BRC, IFS, SQF…) and privately owned (Non GMO Identity Preservation …) standards for food safety management systems, traceability, and identity preservation within food supply chains. EUROFINS participated in the Food Fraud Think Tank, a public-private partnership encouraged by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) and whose work has led to recommendations to include food fraud mitigation in existing food safety management systems of the food industry.
“Working closely with the USP team will reinforce our food fraud deterrence services portfolio to the food sector benefit, using our know-how and proprietary technologies, including our competencies in authenticity testing and manufacturers sites auditing, said Rodolphe Labal, Eurofins Managing Director of Food testing France”.
USP’s Food Fraud Database is a comprehensive source of information on food fraud risk for thousands of ingredients. The database can be used to identify which ingredients have a known history of adulterations including incident reports, inference reports, surveillance records, and analytical methods. USP searches, compiles, and performs quality control checks on data gathered daily from scientific literature, media publications, regulatory and judicial records and trade associations from around the globe. USP’s Food Fraud Mitigation Guidance provides a framework to assess ingredient vulnerability, the associated risk, and develop food fraud mitigation plans.
”USP is focused on improving public health and has developed tools that can play a critical role to help industry address the issue of adulterated foods within the complexities of the ingredient supply chain”, said Bill Folkerts, USP’s VP of Strategic Marketing and Program Operations. “Our collaboration with Eurofins will leverage the scientific strengths of both organizations to help improve safety and integrity in the foods we eat.”
For more information, contact mediarelations@usp.org.