Reference laboratories

The National Food Institute is part of the Danish contingency plan concerning food safety, and is a national and international reference laboratory within a number of essential areas.

Nutrition

The National Food Institute undertakes tasks corresponding to those of a national reference laboratory for nutrition. This includes:

• Methods development, validation and maintenance
• Methods consulting within vitamins and nutrients
• Continuous collection of monitoring data within nutrition

Chemical food safety

The National Food Institute is a national reference laboratory for chemical food safety, which entails participation in activities, development, methods validation and maintenance, accreditation maintenance, continuous collection of monitoring data as well as relevant methods consulting within food contact materials, metals and minerals, organic environmental pollutions and pesticides.

Internationally the National Food Institute is an EU Reference Laboratory for pesticides in cereals and feeding stuff (EURL-CF), processing contaminants in food (EURL-PC) and metals and nitrogenous compounds in feed and food (EURL-MN).

For more information visit the laboratories' websites:

• EURL-CF
• EURL-PC
• EURL-MN

Microbiological food safety

The National Food Institute heads the national reference laboratory within microbiological food safety, which e.g. entails coordinating microbiological samples.

Internationally, the National Food Institute is an EU Reference Laboratory for antimicrobial resistance (EURL-AR) and a WHO Collaborating Centre for antimicrobial resistance in foodborne pathogens.

The National Food Institute’s role as reference laboratory for antimicrobial resistance is described in further detail on the EURL-AR website.

You can also read more about the institute's role as WHO Collaborating Centre and FAO Reference Centre.