Accreditation of Laboratories and Nutrition Software
Accreditation of Laboratories
Accreditation is a term often associated with laboratories. It means that they follow a laid-down standard and are inspected against that.
The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (or UKAS) provides the standard and does the inspections for laboratories.
There are general accreditation schemes for businesses, but what differentiates UKAS is that they demand technical competence as well. So, if the laboratory offers protein analysis, UKAS will check that the method is suitable (and preferably a published standard method), and they will watch the method actually being carried out.
Of course, even with all the checking (and checking of the checking), an accreditation certificate is no guarantee that everything in the laboratory is done correctly every time.
It is, however, a most demanding standard and should show that the lab processes are generally sound.
Accreditation of Nutrition Software
We are sometimes asked if NutriCalc is accredited.
We approached UKAS some time ago about the possibility of getting the software accredited, and we were told that, unfortunately, it isn’t possible. They would not be willing to accredit software and database products.
And the principal reason for this is that some of the user’s own data used may come from an unreliable source. Also, errors may occur when the information is being keyed in.
We can entirely agree with UKAS that a calculation tool could not be accredited and that, like laboratories, it would need to be the user of the tool who would need to demonstrate the use of high-quality data and consistently applied good practice.
Any nutrition calculation company that claims to have an accredited product is being misleading.
At NutriCalc, we have been setting the standard for the food industry for over 30 years and we’re very confident in the performance of our software.
It is used by prestigious multinational organisations as well as organisations such as Campden BRI, supermarkets, and Trading Standards Officers.
It has excellent, accurate data, is easy to use and contains checks and warnings to guide the user. Most importantly, we have excellent documentation and customer support.
Using our chat function or raising a support ticket will produce a very rapid response during office hours.