Description:
Affidia s.r.l. SB
The total worldwide expense for food testing is estimated in the order magnitude of 20 billion € (2019) and it is still growing with a rate of 5-10% per year. Large part of this is due to the analytical services purchased by the food and feed industries, often sold in bundle with a support for risk assessment and regulatory issues. Part of this business is made by analytical instrumentation and a smaller part by the so called “rapid methods” business (test kits).
Because of frequent outbreaks of pathogens like Listeria or Salmonella as well as recall for mycotoxins, allergens, adulteration, the competent authorities have to maintain a strict monitoring system and perform many verification tests. Food traders, industries and retailers must keep in place a proper control of the raw materials, perform accurate validation of the cleaning procedures as well as test for the presence of contaminants or undeclared components in the finished products.
Multinational food companies control a large part of the food business, but still the majority of food sold all over the world, even in the developed countries, is processed in Small Medium Enterprises (SME). Such smaller companies hardly have a laboratory and generally just performed sampling and give all the test materials to a local service lab. All SMEs have some support to implement HACCP, but they often miss the time and knowledges to deeply understand all the risks linked to their productions. Rarely they are able to keep in place a chemical laboratory to test chemical contaminants or check for potential adulteration, even a screening method like ELISA is sometimes performed without the right training. Often the decision makers ignore how many different technologies and brands are available for the tests they should perform, being just lucky if some good sales representative visit them (in small countries skilled resellers often do not exist and even in big countries sales networks are rarely able to reach all the potential customers).
Our mission is to support Food Business owner and Food Quality / Safety managers, especially SMEs, in having in place the best preventive controls for risk managements. We provide advice about the different analytical technologies, support in order to choose which test can be performed in house and which test should be outsourced, considering the production process and the human resources available.
The way we provide our support is:
Affidia Journal
Affidia Journal aims to provide food business owners, food safety managers, and laboratory managers with high-level scientific/technical/regulatory information on food safety and food diagnostic.
The journal covers all the major topics, such as contaminants, veterinary drug residues, pathogens, food allergens, GMOs, and food fraud.
Affidia Journal accepts scientific and technical contributions by a variety of academic and private sources with a reputation for independence.
The authors involved are well-known professors, top-level managers with careers in the food industry, Test Kit Manufacturer product managers, and CEOs of service laboratory.
Where we are
Affidia is located in Area Science Park, Padriciano, Trieste, Italy.
Which kind of company we are
Affidia is a Benefit Company. This mean that we are committed to care the environment, the employees and the local community, not just the profit for shareholders.
