labiagro – chemical, agrifood and microbiological laboratory
Labiagro is the ISQ group’s Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory, focused on quality control and food safety.
With an excellent highly qualified and experienced team and a unique laboratory structure, it has the most advanced technology and offers a range of unique services that are an integral and indispensable part of ensuring food safety and quality, contributing to more awareness in society.
Labiagro provides services to all operators in the food chain, specifically producers, industry, distributors and warehouses, in a wide range of sectors of activity. It provides knowledge to supplement decision making and offers specialised services and integrated solutions that result in a significant improvement in the performance levels of organisations participating in the food chain. It also improves processes and therefore safeguards consumer health and well-being, contributing to minimising public health risks.
Services are provided in 3 main areas:
- Analytical services: Chemical and Microbiological Analyses
- Consultancy and Technical Support, Technical solutions, namely, food label validation.
- Training
CHEMICAL LABORATORY
With a unique laboratory structure, the latest technology and a world-class team with high levels of training and experience, it offers a range of unique analyses and services that form an integral and indispensable part in guaranteeing food safety and quality.
Specialising in determining contaminants, it researches and develops analytical methodologies to allow the compliance of foodstuffs to be assessed through their identification and quantification, followed by their comparison with the respective legal limits.
MICROBIOLOGY LABORATORY
The Microbiology Laboratory combines reference methods, using classical microbiology and automated methods, including the quantification of indicator micro-organisms and the detection/quantification of pathogenic micro-organisms.
Automated analytical techniques allow the optimisation of analytical processes and the resulting increase in capacity and productivity, resulting in shorter response times.
Analyses can be performed on the following matrices:
- Foodstuffs
- Surfaces, for cleaning and disinfection control (equipment, utensils, handlers)
- Water
- Indoor air quality (IAQ)
Continuously evolving alongside the industry, Labiagro offers automated analytical techniques that allow it to provide an urgent response for the counting of quality indicators and pathogen detection. These offer security and speed while maintaining the reliability of results and providing companies with better decision-making management and the ability to release products earlier and therefore at less expense.
Food consumption is evolving along with consumer health protection, so all participants in the food processing industry are subject to liability, which has also led to the evolution of product quality assurance and safety.
The food industry routinely assesses microbial flora, which indicates the microbiological quality of the entire production process, from the ingredients to the finished product. This gives an early warning of contamination problems as it easily allows the need for other diagnostic tests – specifically for pathogens – to be evaluated.
IPAC Accreditation
RIGOUR AND COMPETENCE
Rigour and competence are key to the quality of Labiagro’s work. With the aim of assessing the accuracy of analytical methodologies and proving the comparability of results, every year Labiagro participates in inter-laboratory tests that involve all its areas of activity and test methods – a wide range of matrices and all of its technicians.
ACCREDITATION AND RECOGNITION
As a result of this commitment to quality and rigour, Labiagro has been an IPAC accredited laboratory (Certificate No. L0298-1) since 2003, according to the NP EN ISO/IEC 17025 reference standard.
IPAC access:http://www.ipac.pt/docsig/?9LC3-2RH7-T54Q-YD15
In addition to a fixed scope accreditation, it also has a flexible accreditation that allows the implementation of new versions of pre-accredited methods, thus giving it greater autonomy and a better ability to respond to market needs.
It should be noted that Labiagro is recognized by the DGAV – Directorate-General for Food and Veterinary as an “Official Laboratory” for determining pesticide results, and it is also recognised by ERSAR – the Water and Waste Services Regulatory Body for performing tests on water for human consumption.
Address
Taguspark (inside ISQ Campus)
Av. Prof. Dr. Cavaco Silva, 33 Edf. G
2740-120 Oeiras, Portugal