NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Waters and the UK's The Food and Environment Research Agency today announced they are establishing a laboratory-based training facility to improve food safety detection.
The training facility will be based near York, UK, and will primarily train those concerned with exporting foods to Europe, and the collaboration combines the partners' "respective regulatory, scientific, and industry expertise to help solve the global food safety challenge," they said.
Waters will help establish the laboratory's construction, assist FERA to design training programs, and provide analytical systems to the laboratory, which will be outfitted with Acquity UPLC-MS/MS systems, sample preparation components, and mycotoxin analysis tools.
FERA will offer training in the best available techniques for testing for food contamination and educate testing organizations about different global food safety regulatory standards. FERA will provide training on testing methods recommended by the European Union for the detection of contaminants in food using the latest technology and equipment.
"FERA's food science experts are internationally recognized and now they will be able to pass on that expertise through this new purpose built training centre," Adrian Belton, chief executive of FERA, said in a statement. "This initiative is just one of several recent developments that support the development of a science and innovation campus at this site."
The facility will be the second in a network of international food safety training labs established by Waters with a partner. In September, it, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the University of Maryland established the International Food Safety Training Laboratory, a public-private partnership to provide training for food safety detection methods and regulatory standards.
The facilities in the network will coordinate and share expertise, Waters said.