Reaccreditation
The inspection of our laboratory for the reaccreditation according ISO/IEC 17025 took place in june of this year – with success. The new certificates are available at our WEB-page in german and english language:
The accreditation is valid till 30.03.2010..
plastisizers in edible oils
The german NGO (non governmental organisation) „Stiftung Warentest“ published a test of olive oils in their issue "test"-Heft 10 . They directed the readers attention to the problem correlated with plastisizers like phthalates and adipates. Some of the analysed oils showed high amounts of DEHP (DiEthylHexylPhthalate). The german Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung (institue for risk assessment) stated that such compounds mustn’t be in edible oils. Sources of these compounds are plastics, used during the production and coming into direct contact with the food. Raised temperature of the oil or low velocities promote the migration into the food. The sources of plastisizers must be identified and replaced. Some of the phthalates like the DEHP are also regarded as environmental contaminants. In the last decades they were used as additives in PVC with amounts in the percentage range. They are stable and lipophilic and accumulate within the food chain. For olive oils these ubiquitous contents are in the range of 1 to 2 mg/kg. Higher contents indicate additional sources. The german BNN established values for the orientation for phthalates in olive oil considering these envirionmental.
SOFIA GmbH GmbH offers a broad service for the quality control of edible oils. Beside the residue analysis (pestizides, plastisizers, mycotoxines) quality criterias are alos determined (pyropheophytine, diglyzerides, vitamines).
The analysis of plastisizers covers the group of phthalates as well the group of adipates, the organophosphates and the organotin compounds. Special additives like ESBO and SEM(semicarbazid) are also part of the service of SOFIA.
new - SOFIA GmbH as a QS-laboratory
In the last two years SOFIA GmbH has made great efforts to expand the business area towards the analysis of fresh fruits and vegetables. Therefore SOFIA GmbH applied for membership of the QS Quality and Security GmbH and has just become an acknowledged laboratory for the QS-monitoring of fruits, vegetables and potatoes. "QS is a voluntary alliance of food importeurs and food store chains for the active consumer protection. The common aim is to make the production of foods transparent from the field and the cowshed to the sales counter. This should be the waz to provide confidence to the consumer".
As a membership of this organisation SOFIA GmbH is obliged to assist the aims of the QS Quality and Security GmbH (www.q-s.info ).
new - list of pesticides
for the screening method
available at the WEB
For our clients SOFIA GmbH developed a new service. One of the most frequently questions is: which compounds are really analysed with the applied screening method? One way to give an answer to the question is to append the test report with the list of pesticides analysed. But working with more than 300 comounds the client would lose the overview about the numerous updates.
SOFIA GmbH installed a database at the WEB. This database contains several lists of pesticides with LOQs for the particular screening methods and the particular classes of foods. Each dataset is indicatated by the date when the data were set into the database. Therefore the analysis spectrum of a special date is available. From december on our test reports will contain the three keys: the date of analysis, the index of the used method and the index of the analysed material. With these information the user can query the valid list for this particular test report. A detailled operating guideline is available here.
We hope that you will be satisfied with this service. If there occur any problems do not hesitate to contact us. We are very interested to advance these tools.