Quality Testing Labs - stepping into 2017

“Quality is the sole guarantor of a nation’s economic growth” Make in India, an initiative by our honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi is the harbinger of a revolution in India. With the motto “Zero Defect, Zero Effect”, he has urged the Indian industries and economy to be driven towards development of best quality products. India is witnessing development of products that are devoid of defects by using processes that result in zero impact on our environment and ecosystem. Quality testing laboratories play a cardinal role in certifying these products that ultimately reach the common man, thereby acting as a prime adjudicator. Till many years back the general outlook towards testing labs was that of a documentation agency to meet the regulatory requirements. As we enter the regime of National economic dominance, slowly but steadily this mind set is getting revolutionized. Every individual or an organisation who is keen to contribute towards Quality, is looking forward to testing labs as a partner, as a guide and as a family doctor that helps add value to sustainable growth of the complete ecosystem.

The concept of “Quality” has undergone an evolution over the years. 1950’s saw the era of “Quality Control”, wherein a lot of emphasis was given to inspection and taking action to stop defects at the product level – end of process approach. However, with time a need for better system was felt. As the adage goes Prevention is always better than a cure, in this regard 1970’s saw the age of Quality Assurance wherein the quality of processes was evaluated and maintained – inline process approach. Soon corrective action and preventive action took precedence in the functioning of an industry and the 2000’s saw implementation of Total Quality Management – continual quality for complete process approach. The next few years will further Qvolve (Quality evolution) which will talk about Sustainability - Sustainable Quality throughout the life cycle of the product. This requires a Zero Tolerance approach especially when it comes to food testing which determines the standard and safety of food for human consumption.

The standards for safety and quality of food has been defined by the Food Safety and Standards Act 2006 and are also gazetted as Food Safety and Standards Regulations 2011. With only 2 private labs initially recognised by Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, FSSAI, during October 2010, to help clear the bottlenecks at the Mumbai Ports, the testing lab infrastructure has come a long way in last few years. Recently FSSAI has recognised 121 labs in the country to help test imported as well as domestic food samples. FSSAI has also notified 16 referral labs in the country. Apart from this there are some 72 labs of state FDA and/or municipal corporations across all states of India. Many of the 121 labs and the 16 referral labs have good infrastructure and few of these have state-of-the-art lab infrastructure. Thanks to the efforts of Ministry of Food Processing Industry who have funded these labs to procure high end instruments to enable detection at very low levels and help meet the compliance to international regulatory requirements. The year 2017 will now see some of the state level / municipal corporation labs upgraded to such international standards.

The testing labs have also Qvolved on same lines of the Qvolution. 2017 will see more labs getting NABL accreditation and thus more labs to be recognised by FSSAI. However, it will be extremely critical here to verify the accredited scope of the recognised lab as the technical competency of the lab is determined by the accredited scope. It is very important to have method validations, uncertainty of measurements and proficiency testing participation by the labs for specific parameters, specific methods, specific range and specific food matrices. It is suggested that FSSAI should consider two major aspects of the lab while granting recognition – accredited scope and certified food analyst. Many of the referral labs and the state labs should also be encouraged to get NABL accredited to cover the entire scope as per the Horizontal and Vertical standards of FSSR 2011.

Some of the leading Quality testing food labs are now more involved with the regulatory agencies for defining the standards, defining the quality, training – evaluations and also hand holding of Regulator, academia and industry. Last one year the country has already witnessed a sea change in the approach of our regulator. Thanks to our leaders in the Authority, this paradigm shift in approach towards quality, standards and safety of food has seen Food Business Operators, FBOs, working out their annual quality testing requirements and focusing on Total Sustainable Quality. Selection of lab by an FBO is becoming more defined by strict quality guidelines rather than L1, lowest cost of analysis. Organisations have started to realise that Quality will come at a cost and this cost would be actually very small investment for the brand image and reputation.  

The ultimate goal of regulations and the regulatory authorities is to safeguard the citizens of our nation. In last one year FSSAI with help of its scientific panels have gazetted many new regulations and brought out new standards and stringent maximum residue limits, MRL’s. These vertical and horizontal standards, MRLs are based on strong foundation of Risk Assessment and harmonisation with other international standards such as CODEX. New regulations for food additives, nutraceuticals and fortification along with many others have been recently implemented. Few more are in pipeline. All this will have ocean of opportunities for quality testing laboratories in the country. Hope that in 2017, the labs will live up to the expectations of trust, commitment and integrity in delivering Quality services for a safe India.

2017, will also see lot of opportunity for other regulatory bodies such as Export Inspection Council of India, EIC and Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, APEDA. With ever increasing exports of food products and India aiming to become the Food Basket of the world, quality testing of raw as well as finished foods will be very critical. Few years back analytical reports from Indian labs were questionable but due to great efforts of EIC and APEDA, Local Indian Labs are becoming more and more acceptable to the trade in Europe and Americas. These local Indian Labs are working with only one motto – Quality Tested in India. It’s a dream to see the country on top of the Quality map of the world. Whenever we see the three colors of our national flag, we are reminded of valour, peace and prosperity, but going forward the three colors of our national flag will also represent Quality. India is poised to become a Quality Testing Hub for the world and 2017 will indeed be a stepping milestone towards the dream of Quality India.

Dr Nilesh Amritkar, Managing Director, Envirocare Labs, India. [email protected]