Food testing labs to soon follow same standards

India’s food regulator will soon notify referral laboratories that will help develop standards for procedures and methods to be followed for testing food in India, as per new regulations published recently. These referral laboratories will also evaluate the performance of other labs.

“One set of laboratories has been created known as reference laboratories. They basically ensure that testing across laboratories is done using the same standard methods. They also do proficiency testing. Proficiency testing refers to whether the labs are doing tests correctly or not,” said Pawan Agarwal, CEO of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. “The ecosystem will ensure consistency of results across labs.” Under the new rules, audits of laboratories will be scheduled at least once a year to check for quality.

The regulations spell out rules for notifying and recognising food laboratories, procedures for notification, obligations of food laboratories, among others.