CTLA Food Testing Laboratory

The quality and safety of food products are invaluable to the health and well-being of our society.

FDA Food Regulations

The United States food industry is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Food testing requirements include environmental testing and nutritional analysis and labeling of all food consumer products.

 

CTLA Food Testing Laboratory Services

Fresh Food – CTLA's testing services will ensure your fresh foods are free from harmful microorganisms and heavy metal contamination. Fresh food can be easily contaminated with microorganisms and/or heavy metals from soil, air, or water sources.

Our Microbiology Combination Testing includes Total Plate Count (TPC) of all microorganisms, Yeast and Mold (YM), Salmonella, Total Coliforms, E-Coli, and the bacteria, Staph Aureus. We offer additional microorganism laboratory services including testing for other bacteria strains or individual microbiology tests that are available upon request.

Our Heavy Metals testing rules out Arsenic, Cadmium, Mercury, and Lead contamination. We use Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Spectrometry to detect extremely low-level concentrations of these harmful metals.

Packaged Food – The FDA requires all packaged food to contain a nutrition facts label. In addition to conducting microbiology and heavy metal testing for packaged food, CTLA conducts FDA required identity and potency testing for the packaged food’s nutrition facts label.

Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), CTLA will identify and quantify the nutritional components in your packaged food. We also conduct testing to determine the number of Calories in a given serving of your product along with each of the three major components of any food including:

• Fat content - Saturated, Polyunsaturated, Monounsaturated, and Trans-Fat content
• Carbohydrate – Fiber and Sugar content
• Protein content

We also determine the products Cholesterol and Sodium content as required by the FDA. Many consumers are interested in these numbers as high levels of cholesterol and sodium are associated with obesity and heart disease.

CTLA also determines the various nutritional components in your packaged food including the various Vitamins and Minerals essential to good health. We will give you the number of micrograms of each micronutrient in a serving along with its associated percent daily value (%DV) based on the recommended daily amount (RDA) established by the United States Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

CTLA laboratory testing also identifies the Stability of shelf life and Preservation Efficacy of packaged food products to ensure freshness, ingredient stability, and nutritional value.

 

Put CTLA to Work for You

You have put a great deal of time and resources into developing and maintaining a high-quality food product. CTLA is here to help meet all your food safety and food analysis needs in the quickest turnaround time possible. Here at CTLA, we focus on outstanding customer service and communication. Let CTLA stand behind you and the quality of your product with our detailed laboratory testing.

Sources

1. “Changes to Nutrition Facts Label.” FDA. 2016. https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/changes-nutrition-facts-label