Employing Safe Pesticide Residue Analysis to Protect Consumer Food
Susanne Ekroth, Analytical Chemist at Livsmedelsverket, discusses the analytical scope of Orbitrap technology in food analysis at EPRW 2016
20 Dec 2016
The Swedish National Food Agency is the administrative authority for issues relating to food and drinking water. The agency acts in the interests of consumers for safe, good-quality food, good practices in food handling and healthy eating habits.
The Swedish National Food Agency is located in Uppsala, near Stockholm. Susanne Ekroth works at the Agency to protect consumers from pesticide residues in food. In this video interview, given during the European Pesticide Residue Workshop 2016 (EPRW), Susanne describes her work in more detail.
The National Food Agency screens foods for 330 different pesticides as part of a targeted routine analysis, as well as utilizing high resolution techniques to analyze for pesticides not expected to be found. Using Thermo Scientific™ Orbitrap™ technology, both types of analysis can be carried out simultaneously, using one chemist and one injection. The major advantages of using this high resolution technology for this application is its simplicity and ease of use.
The technology can be used for a wide range of applications, including screening for pesticides, mycotoxins, veterinary drugs, vitamins or other toxins. Another major advantage is the ability to run retrospective analyses for completely unknown analytes. Susanne goes on to state that “there are no limitations within the field of analysis”.