Guidance and responsibilities of the UK’s National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for food microbiology.
Published 22 November 2023
The UK’s NRL for food microbiology is responsible for official controls on specific areas of food microbiology:
- Listeria monocytogenes
- coagulase positive staphylococci
- Escherichia coli (including STEC)
- campylobacter
- salmonella
- antimicrobial resistance
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) awarded the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) these responsibilities for performing official controls to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules. This is described in Article 101 of Regulation (EU) No 2017/625, which is now the retained EU legislation (REUL) in the UK, UK Statutory Instrument 2019 No. 665.
When implementing and using ISO Standards, there is some supporting information to help food laboratories, including news and method validation and verification presentations.
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