Process Validation
Project Type
Lab Services
Challenge
Niagara Food Specialties are local artisan producers of traditional Italian-inspired ‘salumi’ who use traditional processing techniques that differ from standard fermented meat processing. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) approached NFS and requested validation to prove that their process is acceptable according to health and safety requirements.
Solution
The CFWI Innovation Centre completed two types of laboratory testing that will be used to obtain CFIA approval of their processes. The first was a shelf-life test in which the team inoculated the surface of the sample product with pathogens and tested it regularly to see that it did not grow. The second was a challenge test whereby a test product was inoculated with the expectation that the amount of pathogens would drop significantly over a 4-month period. Results were positive.
