July 19, 2016
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has announced the release of its two-part series of standards on microbiology in the food chain:
- ISO 16140-1:2016, Microbiology of the Food Chain – Method Validation – Part 1: Vocabulary, which provides descriptions of terms used in microbial testing
- ISO 16140-2:2016, Microbiology of the Food Chain – Method Validation – Part 2: Protocol for the Validation of Alternative (Proprietary) Methods against a Reference Method, which is intended for validation of proprietary microbiological methods
Published on June 15, 2016, the standards, which are a revised version of a similar standard released in 2003, aim to assist food and feed testing laboratories, competent authorities, and food and feed business operators in microbiological testing. Parts 3-6 of ISO 16140 are still under development.