Thermo Fisher serve up food and drink at show

Thermo Fisher Scientific showcased its comprehensive laboratory instrumentation and informatics solutions for food, beverage and agricultural applications at the 2008 Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC) annual meeting and exposition at the end of September.

"We were pleased to highlight our comprehensive range of solutions to meet the growing demands of our customers - and the global regulatory agencies that oversee them - as they strive to ensure the quality and safety of our food supply chain," said Marc N. Casper, chief operating officer of Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company's products are used for testing during all stages of food production, from the farm to the consumer's table.

Thermo Scientific laboratory instrumentation is designed to be robust enough for demanding applications in the field, but also precise enough to detect exceptionally low concentrations of potentially harmful residues in food, beverages, animal feeds and fertilizers. At AOAC, Thermo Fisher demonstrated how its instruments detect extremely low levels of pesticides, metabolites, pathogens and other compounds within complex samples.

For example, at the show scientists tested beef and chicken samples using a workflow that includes the Thermo Scientific Exactive, the new bench-top liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) system, and the Thermo Scientific Aria TLX, which accelerates testing by allowing prepared food samples to be injected directly into the mass spectrometry system. The workflow also featured the company's high-quality Remel microbiology products, including dehydrated culture media and Dry Spot testing kits that provide an easy-to-use, rapid means of testing for food pathogens such as E. coli.

For more information visit the company's website at www.thermo.com