New ISO Standard Validates Microorganism Testing Methods

ISO 16140:2003 for the validation of alternative (proprietary) microbiological methods has been revised and includes two parts. ISO 16140-1:2016, Microbiology of the food chain, Method validation—Part 1: Vocabulary, describes the terminology used in microbial testing, while ISO 16140-2:2016, Microbiology of the food chain, Method validation—Part 2: Protocol for the validation of alternative (proprietary) methods against a reference method, is dedicated to the validation of proprietary microbiological methods. They are designed to help food and feed testing laboratories, test kit manufacturers, competent authorities, and food and feed business operators to implement microbiological methods. ISO 16140-2 includes two phases, the method comparison study and the interlaboratory study, with separate protocols for the validation of qualitative and quantitative microbiological methods.