Cereal Docks Group Lab, centre of excellence for quality and innovation of the Cereal Docks Group, has obtained the accreditation ISO 17025 issued by Accredia, a body designated by the Italian government and supervised by the Ministry of Economic Development, which is responsible for certifying the competence, independence and impartiality of testing laboratories and certification bodies.
The ISO 17025 accreditation improves the value and the reliability of the analyses and offers a high degree of assurance on the quality and safety of the products. This activity has an impact on society and it is carried out in the public interest as it aims at safeguarding consumer health and environmental protection.
Moreover, it gives legal value to the analyses and represents a very important goal for Cereal Docks Group Lab, because it allows to operate with greater efficiency and speed and to guarantee the competence, independence and impartiality of the analysts and technicians who work there.
"The accredited analyses - explains Marco Sigola Quality Manager of Cereal Docks Group - meet three fundamental requirements: reproducibility, precision, reliability. The tests must also pass strict validation tests, periodically subjected to validity checks and audits by Accredia. In other words, the accredited tests must be performed by authorized operators following standardized procedures. This is the only way to obtain an objective result and give legal value to the test".
In line with the development model of the Cereal Docks Group, the accreditation is focused on food safety and the guarantee of non-gmo products: "We have decided - continues Marco Sigola - to focus firstly on some specific tests: the screening of certain GMO events and the aflatoxins b1, b2, g1, g2 of maize. For the accredited tests, Cereal Docks Group Lab will be able to issue universally accepted declarations of conformity, to guarantee maximum product safety at all stages of the production chain managed by the Group's companies and BUs.
For food safety purposes, the result of a test can only be considered if the analysis has been carried out in an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory. Cereal Docks Group has always invested in safety and today boasts a structured self-controlled system, but to validate certain analyses it has had to turn to external laboratories.
With accreditation, this will no longer be necessary, bringing important advantages, for example in the rapid generation of analytical results. "We expect – says again Sigola - a considerable reduction, for example, in the number of product stoppages, as well as greater economies of scale. But the most important benefit will undoubtedly be in terms of the skills and know-how of our human resources that have enabled us to achieve this important recognition. Accredia assesses the management and technical competence of the test laboratories. Therefore, accreditation certifies the quality of the work, verifying the conformity of its management system and its skills to internationally recognized regulatory requirements. This result gives further value to internal professionalism".
Today, consumers demand guarantees on the quality and safety of the goods and services they buy. Suppliers in the food industry and livestock supply chains must ensure compliance with strict regulations to face competition in increasingly complex and rapidly changing markets. "Accredited testing laboratories - concludes Sigola - have the ability and competence to issue internationally accepted declarations of conformity.
This opens new prospects for companies of the Cereal Docks Group, with reference to the opening of new markets. Finally, structured in this way, the laboratory has technical and technological skills and expertise to deal with any health emergencies which, as shown by the Covid 19 pandemic, can unfortunately represent a real threat".
