The food industry is constantly changing, so there are always new opportunities for food manufacturers to expand their technical knowledge and expertise. Food Manufacturing spoke with Deepali Mohindra of Thermo Fisher Scientific about the company’s new Applied Food Testing Library, designed to address concerns of the food and beverage industry.
Q: What is the Applied Food Testing Library and how does it work?
A: It is a collection of resources for professionals in food and beverage testing. It contains various types of technical testing solutions for the concerns of the global food and beverage industry. Users can browse the library and download any resource for free. They just need to register one time. This is not a static repository because we’re continually adding new content to keep it relevant to current challenges facing food scientists.
Q: What prompted the creation of the library?
A: Thermo Fisher Scientific provides a comprehensive range of analytical tools, and we’ve been active in a broad range of food and beverage testing disciplines for a long time. Along the way, we’ve accumulated a great deal of knowledge, and we wanted to share this with the food testing community. This new library makes this knowledge base easily accessible.
Q: What types of solutions and information can be found in the library?
A: The library covers a broad range, from methods to detect chemical or biological contaminants to information on product development, R&D and quality control. Resources include white papers, technical posters, podcasts, application notes, validated methods and case studies. We’re confident that scientists involved with testing food, beverages or nutraceuticals will find things to help them address real-life challenges. For example, the library contains several resources concerning the U.S. Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), a topic of interest to a wide range of industry professionals.
Q: What types of food professionals are likely to gain the most from the library?
A: The library is relevant to most types of technical food professionals around the world. This includes microbiologists, chemists, quality control personnel and laboratory and production management. It applies to contract testing laboratories, government entities, academic food science research, public health organizations, and food and beverage producers.
For more information about the Applied Food Testing Library, visit www.thermoscientific.com/fsnews.
Interview by Lindsey Coblentz, Associate Editor