External Lab Tests Expected for Catering Industry

Dear All,

I am in the process of implementing HACCP for a Catering industry. Can you please suggest the list of food and water analysis to be done in the external laboratory? What all the test i should go and follow by? Kindly suggest. 

Thank you,

Regards,

For water quality, I would hazard you should use acceptable limits from the WHO as your guide. You should have your water tested for everything as a bench mark, heavy metals, total coliform, chemical residues from treatment (chlorine) etc. 

Are you on a well or municipal water?

Hi, VBH;

A good and fairly comprehensive published standard for micro on various foods (this does not over-ride local/state/federal regulation and guidance):

EU Micro criteria for food.pdf   450.23KB   42 downloads

I would guess that you being in catering that some of those numbers are somewhat conservative in regards to shelf life. Again, local regulations will apply. 

As for potable water at the very minimum you should be absent on coliform/E. coli, and under 100 for HPC. Heavy metals and other 'stuff' are somewhat the grey area. I guess it's just a myopic matter over long term vs. short term.

You need to conform to your local regulations. The lab should be able to advise you of these if you don't already have them.

VBH,

You mentioned analytical requirements for (1) food and (2) water.

(2 )i assume you mean drinking, eg bottled, water quality. From memory there is an Indian Standard for this as is usual in most countries.

many (prob.most) local Standards are based on one or more of a handful of International Standards, for example, as already noted, WHO. Many of  the latter have been posted on this forum. Of course if you intend to export, the destination requirements will also come into play.

(1) The answer really depends on what categories of foods you plan to manufacture.Perhaps you could expand a little. The generic answer to yr query is that the analysis details will typically be focussed on determining compliance to the product specification.

Thank you...