FDBusiness.com

Food consumers globally are becoming increasingly discerning in selecting produce to fill their fridges, cupboards and, indeed, stomachs. Factors of choice are moving beyond taste, appearance and nutritional content. Public awareness of food safety is highly sensitised and increasingly proliferated through online news and social media headlines and few are immune.

The issue of antibiotic resistance linked to drug residues in food is growing amongst consumers, and there is an expectation for food producers to deal with it appropriately. The problem of mycotoxins in feed and feed components makes fewer headlines, but is no less a problem.

The occurrence of contamination in various grain crops is of growing concern, as it has major implications for feed safety, food security and international trade. According to a European Commission report, it is estimated that mycotoxins are responsible for losses of up to 10% of crop production worldwide.

The consumption of mycotoxins can adversely affect the health of humans and animals to a significant degree. The effects from mycotoxin ingestion have consequently influenced international food standards, which recommend that food producers screen for mycotoxins.

How can food producers tackle the issue of mycotoxins to ensure international food safety standards are being met?

To protect consumers, a Tolerable Daily Intake (TDI) has been established, estimating the quantity of mycotoxins that someone can be exposed to daily over their lifetime without posing a significant risk to health. Globally, however, the requirement for mycotoxin screening varies.

Compliance with internationally acceptable limits for mycotoxins (TDI) can be challenging for the food and feed industry; requiring excellent plant protection, adequate storage and expert manufacturing practices in order to keep levels below the limits. It is therefore economical and efficient to have the ability to test multiple mycotoxins at once.

Randox Food Diagnostics offers a range of revolutionary screening tools for the semi-quantitative analysis of mycotoxins, using both the unique patented Biochip Array Technology (BAT) and high quality ELISAs. Randox’s innovative BAT arrays allow fast, comprehensive and sensitive screening of all of the world’s most prevalent mycotoxins in customisable arrays of up to 10 toxins.

MycoFlex is the latest innovation in mycotoxin screening from Randox Food Diagnostics. MycoFlex gives you the flexibility to test only those mycotoxins of concern from a single 50µl sample of feed.

How MycoFlex Works

Select any combination of toxins from the 10 toxin list below (minimum of 3), and your test menu will be spotted onto a customised chip. This flexibility allows you to accommodate any changes in your screening requirements.

Randox Food’s Biochip Array Technology is quick, giving results in under two hours. Studies also show that there are no false negatives and less than 5% false positives, lowering the cost per sample and eliminating the need for costly single tests, as only positive samples require confirmatory testing.

With global controls on food safety and contaminants becoming ever more complex, having the right technology is key to meeting those challenges now and in the future. With over 30 years of experience in the diagnostics market, Randox Food continues to transform the landscape of conventional mycotoxin and drug residue screening. Randox consistently develops revolutionary, high quality detection methods and kits that cover all major antibiotics, growth promoters and anthelmintics used in global food production, such as animal tissue, seafood, honey and milk.

Visit www.randoxfooddiagnostics.com today for more information.