Certification of a meat reference material based on a collaborative study

Through a collaborative project, comparison studies were carried out to improve measurement capabilities of participating laboratories, supporting them to produce, characterize and distribute reference materials in the food sector. The project was planned in four annual stages (milk, water, meat and grains). The third stage aimed specifically to quantify and certify the nutritional content of the parameters (nitrogen, fat, sodium and potassium) of a batch candidate as Certified Reference Material (CRM) of canned beef. This study was conducted in collaboration between several National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) and/or collaborating laboratories, which, once identified the possible causes of variability or bias in the measurements, as well as the opportunities of improvement, achieved the certification of the material beef. The CRM was distributed among the participants to cover the needs of the food industry of meat products and testing laboratories in their respective countries.