Two NordVal International certificates issued to Biotecon have been renewed: NordVal International Certificate 023 "foodproof® Salmonella Detection Kit, Hybridization Probes and foodproof® Salmonella Detection Kit, 5’ Nuclease, in combination with foodproof® ShortPrep I Kit or foodproof® StarPrep One Kit” and  NordVal International Certificate 025 ”foodproof® Listeria monocytogenes Detection Kit, Hybridization Probes and foodproof® Listeria monocytogenes Detection Kit,  5’ Nuclease, in combination with foodproof® ShortPrep II Kit or foodproof® StarPrep Two Kit”.  Both methods are real-time PCR and use detection with specific, fluorescence labelled probes. The former is applicable for food, feed and environmental samples and the latter for food and environmental samples. See certificate No. 023 here and No. 025 here.

Two NordVal International certificates issued to Hyserve have been renewed: NordVal International Certificate 042 "Compact Dry X-SA Method for the Enumeration of Staphylococcus aureus in Foods" and NordVal International Certificate 043 ”Compact Dry YM Method for the Enumeration of Yeasts and Moulds in foods”. Compact Dry comprises ready-to-use dry media sheets with culture medium and a cold-soluble gelling agent, rehydrated by inoculating 1ml diluted sample into the centre of the self-diffusible medium. The Compact Dry X-SA and the Compact  Dry YM methods both contain chromogenic medium and selective agents for the detection and enumeration of Staphylococcus aureus or yeast and mould, respectively. See certificate No. 042 here and No. 043 here.

NordVal International Certificate 017 "Campylobacter real-time PCR” issued to Eurofins, has been renewed.
This real time PCR method is applicable for the detection of the human pathogenic thermotolerant Campylobacters  (C. jejuni, C. coli and C. lari) in chicken raw meat, cloacae swabs and faecal samples collected on disposable shoe covers in rearing houses. See the certificate here.

When the result of a chemical analysis is presented in an analytical report it is recommended that it should always be reported as a numerical result. For the result to be complete, the measurement uncertainty of the analysis should also be included. In many cases, a result can be very hard to interpret unless accompanied by its uncertainty.

In this updated version of the procedure, guidance on how to handle bias / systematic errors in relation to measurement uncertainty is included. The principles described in Nordtest TR 537 for environmental analyzes have been introduced in the NMKL procedure and examples showing how these calculations are to be performed have been added. Whether one can or should correct for systematic errors is a complex issue, and a new section has been added to explain his. Additionally, minor restructuration and update of references have been undertaken.

A scandinavian version of this 3rd edition will follow.

NMKL method No. 203 describes the determination of sodium content in foodstuffs by capillary electrophoresis (CE). The CE method is quick and needs both very little sample handling and low amount of solvents. It is applicable to various matrices such as bread, vegetables and meat products. The salt content is calculated from the sodium content with the formula: salt = 2.5 x sodium.

Sodium is extracted from sample and analysed by CE with diode array detector. The minimum content of sodium that can be detected and quantified is 0.03 g/100 g.

NordVal International receives many applications and, consequently, regularly seeks members to its technical committee. If you are interested in contributing to its work, ref. below-mentioned description of functions, please contact the NMKL secretariat. To see description of functions please click here

NMKL method No. 202, "Methylmercury: determination by isotope dilution GC-ICPMS in foodstuffs", describes the quantitative determination of mono-methylmercury (MMHg) (10-5000 µg/kg dry weight) in mainly marine biota samples. The principle of the method is that the sample is spiked with an appropriate amount of Hg isotope-enriched MMHg and extracted. After derivatisation the sample is analysed using GC-ICPMS. The GC separates the different mercury species before MMHg is atomised and ionised in the high temperature of the ICP. The ions are extracted from the plasma, and in a mass spectrometer the ions are separated by their mass/charge ratio.