SCC recognized under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Foods program

The Standards Council of Canada is a recognized accreditation body under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Foods (LAAF program). We are the only Canadian organization that can grant accreditation for this program.

This program aims to improve the accuracy and reliability of certain food testing through the uniformity of standards and greater FDA oversight. It will help enhance the safety of the U.S. food supply chain and protect consumers through the adoption of a modern, preventative and risk-based approach to food safety regulation. 

Laboratories participating in this voluntary program must also be accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 –General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. 

When the LAAF final rule is fully implemented, it will cover food testing:

• to support removal from an import alert through successful consecutive testing (e.g., to get a food product or firm removed from the red list).
• to support admission of an imported food (e.g., articles of human or animal food, and U.S. goods returned that are articles of food) detained at the border because it is or appears to be in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (e.g., products that contain or appear to contain unapproved food additives, including unauthorized food contact substances).
• required by existing FDA food safety regulations, when applied to address an identified or suspected food safety problem (i.e., certain tests related to shell eggs, sprouts, and bottled drinking water).
• required by a directed food laboratory order, a new procedure being implemented in this final rule that will allow FDA to require use of a LAAF-accredited laboratory to address an identified or suspected food safety problem in certain, rare circumstances.
• conducted in connection with certain administrative processes (e.g., testing submitted in connection with an appeal of an administrative detention order).

Under the fully implemented program, only LAAF-accredited laboratories will be able to conduct food testing for the U.S. market in certain circumstances that are defined in the Food Safety Modernization Act final rule on Laboratory Accreditation for Analyses of Food.

We are accepting applications for this program, and SCC-accredited laboratories that wish to add this to their scope can contact their account manager. Those interested in seeking SCC accreditation can request an application package at accreditation@scc.ca.