Food and Feed

Food companies establish inspection procedures for incoming goods to determine and evaluate purchased goods. Inspection ensures goods meet the quality guaranteed by suppliers and compliance to the quality levels required by legal bodies and producers. Hence, the inspection of incoming goods is of significant importance to food production. BUCHI’s instruments facilitate the various requirements of incoming goods inspection:

• Reliable and definite results on raw material quality
• Quick measurements and a fast time to results
• Fulfillment of prerequisites and legal requirements

Process monitoring involves the surveillance of process data and is correlated to product quality. Production process control occurs when this data is used to adapt production variables to assess the quality or content of intermediates, impurities, and contaminants. Seamless and effective process monitoring is followed by process control to assure the following key factors:

• Meeting required specifications
• Achieving optimum manufacturing efficiency
• Minimizing waste of labor, materials, machines, and tools

In the ISO 9000 norms, both quality control and quality assurance are mentioned as part of the quality management system. For quality control, final goods are tested to conform with legal requirements, and nutritional composition is tested to ensure compliance with food labeling. Certain aspects of food safety are analyzed, such as the absence of pathogens and heavy metals, also food quality, such as the content of nutrients, vitamins and minerals.

External analyses are often carried out by private testing labs. Products are required to be tested to ensure the safety, composition, authenticity, origin, and purity of food and agricultural products. The field of testing includes nutritional analyses and the determination of allergens and contaminants (heavy metals), toxins, and residues, such as those from pesticides and pharmaceuticals, to ensure consumer safety.