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IAS accredits TÜV SÜD’s food testing lab in Visakhapatnam for three years
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Thursday, 14 July, 2016, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, Mumbai
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fiogf49gjkf0d The International Accreditation Service (IAS) has accredited leading testing, inspection and certification company TÜV SÜD’s state-of-the-art food testing lab in Visakhapatnam for a period of three years. Post this accreditation, food products tested in the lab comply with pre-set standards and lab operation rules of the international accreditation body and ISO/IEC 17025 standard.
The accreditation validates that the lab has established a quality management system that meets the principles of ISO 9001:2008 and is also accredited in accordance with the recognised International Standard ISO/IEC 17025:2005. ISO/IEC 17025:2005 specifies the general requirements for the competence to carry out testing including sampling. It covers testing performed using standard methods, non-standard methods, and laboratory-developed methods. ISO/IEC 17025:2005 aids in fortifying a laboratory’s management system for quality as well as administrative and technical operations.
The lab has been approved for microbiological testing of food products such as seafood, meat, poultry products, raw, cooked and ready-to-eat foods, drinking water and fruits to detect life-threatening bacteria such as E coli, Salmonella SPP, enumeration of coliforms and yeast, mould count. It will enable wet chemical and analytical testing on seafood, milk, milk products, spices, and water to identify the presence of harmful contaminants such as antibiotic residues, pesticide residue and heavy metals.
Highlighting the announcement, Dr Pankaj Jaiminy, assistant VP (food, health and cosmetics), testing, certification, inspection, TÜV SÜD South Asia, said: “We are honoured to be one of the first laboratory in India to be rewarded with this accreditation from the prestigious IAS to conduct tests on perishable and non-perishable food products in our lab in Vizag. India is one of the largest exporters in the global seafood market and it is also one of the biggest foreign exchange earners. The lab will also support manufacturers that export to the US and European countries which are some of the biggest importers of Indian food and agricultural products. In such a scenario, it is imperative to empower exporters with quality checks and tests to detect contaminants that will improve the acceptability of their consignments across the world. Armed with international accreditation, our lab will aid exporters and retail brands to assess their products’ adherence to national as well as international quality standards.”
The quality assurance services at the testing lab will act as a quality gate between producers, manufacturers and buyers. The company will also provide certification for FSSC 22000, BRC, HACCP, ISO 22000 and IFS. Some of the globally recognised inspection services from the Vizag lab will include, during production (DUPRO) inspection, initial production check (IPC), final random inspection (FRI), hygiene inspection and loading supervision.
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