Testing for microorganisms in food is an important step in the food safety process to determine that there are no organisms or pathogens that could cause harm.

However, there are many methods, so it is equally important to confirm and verify that a method is reliable enough to meet stringent food safety and consumer safety standards. ISO has a number of standards developed by international experts for this purpose.

ISO 16140-3, Microbiology of the food chain- Method validation - Part 3: Protocol for the verification of reference methods and validated alternative methods in a single laboratory, provides procedures and acceptance criteria for the implementation of test methods in the laboratory. It is designed to assist food and feed testing laboratories, test kit manufacturers, competent authorities and food and feed industries in the application of microbiological methods in their laboratories.

ISO 16140-3 includes two phases: an implementation verification study and a (food) product verification study with separate protocols for the verification of qualitative and quantitative microbiological methods, as well as confirmation and typing methods. It also provides an informative protocol for validating reference methods that have not yet been fully validated.

The standard brings together the other parts of the ISO 16140 series that contain protocols for validating new and alternative methods. This new standard places particular emphasis on the procedure to be followed by laboratories, allowing them to verify the use of approved methods.

Other parts of this series are:

• ISO 16140-1, Microbiology of the food chain. Method validation. Part 1. Dictionary

• ISO 16140-2, Microbiology of the food chain. Method validation. Part 2: Protocol for the validation of alternative (proprietary) methods based on the reference method

• ISO 16140-4, Microbiology of the food chain. Method validation. Part 4. Protocol of method validation in a separate laboratory.

• ISO 16140-5, Microbiology of the food chain - Method validation - Part 5: Factorial interlaboratory validation protocol for non-proprietary methods

• ISO 16140-6, Microbiology of the food chain. Method validation. Part 6. Protocol for validation of alternative (proprietary) microbiological confirmation methods and typing procedures.

The ISO 16140 series of standards was developed by ISO technical committee ISO/TC 34, Food products, subcommittee SC 9, Microbiology, whose secretariat is held by AFNOR, ISO’s member for France. 

Information for source: https://www.iso.org/ru/news/ref2614.html

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