New ISO Standard for Validating Alternative Food Microbiology Methods

ISO 16140 for the validation of alternative (proprietary) microbiological methods has just been revised. The new multipart standard provides a specific protocol and guidelines for the validation of methods both proprietary (commercial) or not.

Two parts of ISO 16140 series now published:

ISO 16140-1:2016, Microbiology of the food chain - Method validation - Part 1: Vocabulary, describes the terminology used in microbial testing, while 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, is dedicated to the validation of proprietary microbiological methods. They are designed to help food and feed testing laboratories, test kit manufacturers, competent authorities, and food and feed business operators to implement microbiological methods. ISO 16140-2 includes two phases, the method comparison study and the interlaboratory study, with separate protocols for the validation of qualitative and quantitative microbiological methods.

For further details, see: ISO

Posted by Dr. Tim Sandle