Reinforcing New Standards for Food Safety

Applied Biosystems has announced that it is assisting the Chinese government in reinforcing new standards for food safety in China. As part of its effort to enhance its ability to monitor the domestic food supply in addition to global exports, the Chinese General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (CIQ) is deploying 40 AB SCIEX mass spectrometers to ensure accurate identification of contaminants. This supports China’s continued emergence as a global supplier of food products.

Scientists in China are using this mass spectrometry technology to perform more advanced analysis of a wide range of food, including rice, corn, wheat, soybeans, fruits, vegetables and livestock products. This analysis is critical for the new standards, and it is enabled by the highly sensitive detection capabilities of the mass spectrometers, which were developed by the Applied Biosystems/MDS Analytical Technologies joint venture.

These systems improve the capabilities of laboratories to scan for, identify and measure the quantity of contaminants in extremely small amounts, enabling government and industry to respond more swiftly to prevent the potential spread of contamination, while having high confidence in the results. As a result, China will be able to ensure more stringent food regulation compliance that will help protect consumers and avoid costly recalls of food products.

Laura Lauman, President of Life Technologies’ Mass Spectrometry Systems Division, said: “Life Technologies is committed to partnering with China to help improve food safety, resulting in one of the single-largest implementations of our proven mass spectrometry technologies.

“This effort is a critical step in ensuring the safety of China’s food products by enabling the accurate identification of harmful chemicals in order to prevent contamination from entering the food supply.”