24 FOOD & DRINK TECHNOLOGY
Massive international investment in new food science laboratories
Around the world, major investments in new food science laboratories are designed to bring the benefits of swift analyses to manufacturers and regulatory authorities. Sean Ottewell reports.
Autour du monde, des investissements majeurs dans les nouveaux laboratoires de science de l’alimentation visent à faire profiter fabricants et autorités réglementaires des avantages d’analyses rapides. Sean Ottewell fait le point.
Mithilfe großer Investitionen in neue Lebensmittellabore weltweit sollen die Vorteile schneller Analysen auch an Hersteller und Aufsichtsbehörden weitergegeben werden. Sean Ottewell berichtet.
E
urofins Scientific, a global leader in food, environment and pharmaceutical
products testing, is transferring its experience in radioactivity analysis of food and water to its newly created laboratory for Radioactive Material Analysis (RMA) in Japan.
Following the powerful earthquake on the 11th March 2011 that devastated eastern Japan and severely damaged the Fukushima nuclear power plant, calls for vigilance over radioactive contamination have raised the demand for testing in food, environment and industrial products in the country.
Eurofins has dedicated resources in its Tokyo laboratory to inspect and analyse materials in the country for radioactive contamination. Te group is transferring to the new dedicated laboratory its technical and scientific expertise in radioactive
Fig. 1. Trainees and professionals from around the world will benefit from the new facilities.
material analyses in food. Tis experience has been accumulated at its Hamburg site over the years following the 1986 Chernobyl power plant explosion and in its Paris’ laboratory, one of the few laboratories officially approved to test drinking water for radioactivity in France, home to one of the largest concentrations of nuclear power plants in the world..
Reliable analyses Te RMA laboratory allows Eurofins to provide clients with highly reliable analyses identical to those provided by the group’s laboratories in Germany and France, within a short turnaround time of a maximum of one week. Te laboratory utilises several germanium semiconductor (HP-Ge) and NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors to provide analyses of, among others, radioactive materials I-131, Cs-134, Cs-137 and Ru-103. Te Group’s laboratory in Hamburg,
Germany, continues to be a global reference in testing services to meet the radiation safety certification requirements for exporting to Europe.
In line with its commitment to corporate social responsibility and its efforts to support the communities where it operates, the Eurofins Group will be donating the entire profit from the new RMA laboratory to the Japanese Red Cross and other public organisations engaged in welfare activities in the wake of the disaster.
Te company has also signed a definitive, mutually-binding agreement to acquire a 67 per cent stake in each of its two subsidiaries, namely IPL Invest and IPL Santé Environnement Durable Nord (IPL SED Nord).
Tese entities are leaders in the French environmental testing
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