Measuring the way to a safer global food system

Every year on May 20, World Metrology Day calls attention to the critical importance of uniform, accurate, traceable measurements in all aspects of the global experience. This year’s theme focuses on “Measurements supporting the global food system” which is in direct response to the challenges we face trying to produce enough safe food to reach a global population of 8 billion people.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 30 million children in the 15 worst-affected countries suffer acute malnutrition; 8 million of those children are severely wasted. This not only threatens their survival, it affects their long-term health and development, which has an enormous impact on their communities for years, and perhaps generations to come.

It's no secret that nutrition, food security, and food safety are all connected. An estimated 600 million people around the world contract food borne illnesses, and 420,000 die each year. Approximately 40% of those who become ill are children under five, and about 125,000 of those children die every year. Beyond the human toll, which is incalculable, there’s an economic cost of approximately $110 billion (US) in lost productivity and medical expenses each year from unsafe food in low- and middle-income countries.

“Farm to Fork” legislation boosts food safety
Accurate measurements can help address the challenges the global food system faces by helping to improve food safety, nutrition, and even yield. Over the last decade or so, the US and other countries have developed “Farm to Fork” legislation that increased the levels of testing at every step of the food chain, from the field where the food is harvested all the way to the consumer’s plate. Each step in that process involves many different measurements.

There are specialized machines to measure every food quality imaginable. They can measure crispness, texture, torsion strength … you name it. Many of these qualities affect the appeal of food; but there are also many measurements that affect its safety. Some of the most obvious measurements used to support global food system safety include:

Temperature. Temperature measurements are critical to ensuring that food is transported, cooked, and stored properly to maintain freshness and prevent biological contamination. Temperature-controlled transport vehicles and commercial refrigeration systems use built-in thermometers to ensure the safe transport and storage of temperature sensitive food products. Restaurant chefs and home cooks use probe food thermometers to measure Internal food temperature to determine when foods are thoroughly cooked both for safety and best flavor. Infrared thermometers are used to measure the surface temperature of food at point of delivery and in food holding lines to ensure compliance with local food temperature monitoring requirements.

Pressure. Pressure is measured in soft drink mixing and blending, storage tanks for milk or beer, and bottling applications to ensure proper taste. Pressure measurements also help producers avoid microbiological contamination during the homogenization process and are critical to food canning, both commercial and home-based. Pressure that is too low or too high is a safety risk.

Humidity. Humidity measurements are key to preventing mold in transport and storage environments for commodities like grain and wheat. High humidity can also shorten the shelf life of nearly any dry goods.

Mass and volume. Mass and volume measurements help to ensure that people are getting what they paid for whether it’s hundreds of tons of wheat or a box of cereal.

Making accuracy more accessible
These measurements are performed, often with portable tools, wherever there’s a transfer in the food process. To ensure their accuracy the measuring devices must have a traceable calibration record from the point of use to the standards used to calibrate them.

Calibrating measuring devices is more challenging than it used to be because accuracy has been pushed out of the laboratories, making it much more accessible and democratized for field technicians. Some of the instrumentation that was only available in a lab is now available onsite for customers. Because the accuracy of field instrumentation is increasing, Fluke needed to respond by providing even more accurate calibration solutions for these instruments.

For example, the pistachio industry recently purchased some of our Fluke temperature calibrators to be able to calibrate thermometers and temperature measurement probes on their processing machines on site so they don’t have to remove them from the machines. They can take the calibrator to the probe in the processing plant and do all the calibration testing right there at the location which saves downtime.

Temperature calibrators used in the field are traceable to primary reference standards in the calibration lab. And those primary standards are sent out to be calibrated to standards established by National Metrology Institutes such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany, or the National Physical Lab (NPL) in the UK. This establishes an unbroken chain of traceability from the primary standards to the SI unit of temperature, the kelvin.

While food system statistics are daunting, it is encouraging to know that many countries are strengthening food safety measurements. The increased focus on measurements leads to increased demands on the science of measurement. Metrologists from around the world are collaborating with food testing laboratories, literally saving lives through good measurements.

By Jeff Gust, Chief Corporate Metrologist, Fluke Corporation