Simple, Quick Way to Reduce The Risk of Food Product Recalls

A quick look at the ‘Food alerts’ section of the Food Standards Agency’s website shows how many products are recalled.

Labcell offers the latest AquaLab Series 4TE water activity analyser as a simple, quick and cost-effective way to obtain quantitative data that provides an invaluable indicator of safety and quality of both ingredients and food products.

For producers of ingredients and food products, the robust AquaLab Series 4TE water activity analyser is a simple, quick and cost-effective way of measuring the water activity in a quality assurance laboratory, goods-in inspection department, storage area or alongside the production line. An AquaLab can be used for checking ingredients, end products or as a critical control point within a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) programme.

The AquaLab Series 4TE not only gives laboratory-grade results, but is also remarkably easy to use by non-specialists, generating results in just five minutes or less (the average read time is 2.5 minutes.

With a measurement range of 0.030 to 1.000 aw, most ingredients and food products can be analysed, whether they are in the form of powders, pastes, liquids or solids. Accuracy is +/-0.003 aw and repeatability is +/-0.001 aw.

One of the ways in which the AquaLab Series 4TE achieves accurate, repeatable readings, even in warm production areas or cool storage areas, is the built-in temperature equilibration; users can set the sample temperature to anything from 15 to 50ºC, then the analyser maintains that temperature for the duration of the test. Subsequent analyses are undertaken at the same temperature to ensure repeatability.

For analysing samples containing volatiles, Labcell offers the AquaLab Series 4TEV. This instrument is identical to the Series 4TE in most respects, but it benefits from an additional hygroscopic polymer capacitance sensor for analysing samples containing propylene glycol, ethanol and other volatiles, giving an accuracy of +/-0.015 aw.

Up to 8,000 data points can be stored securely on the instrument and, for every measurement and calibration, the instrument logs the user, date and time. Data is recorded and stored in compliance with the requirements of the FDA’s 21 CFR Part 11 rule regarding electronic records and signatures.