Validierung: Charakterisierte Methoden für klare Fragen

Validation means to proof if a laboratory method is able to answer a question from the customer or not. For validation procedures the question has to be specific to be answered and the method has to be characterised. The growing organic market needs methods which allow the characterisation of the food. Therefore methods have to be developed which reflect the systemic approach in organic agriculture. First of all these methods shall differentiate food products grown and processed organically from those derived from other production processes. Moreover for product oriented quality control the quality criteria and their limits have to be defined within the organic market

Einsatz sensorischer Untersuchungen zur Verbesserung der handwerklichen Verarbeitung ökologischer Milch- und Getreideerzeugnisse

Based on the results of a literature review and investigations along the process chain of 10 (each) small scale processors of grain and milk a sensory training programme has been developed to increase the product quality of organic bread (rye-wheat bread with sourdough) and cheese (semi hard farmhouse cheese). The training programme has been evaluated by professionals for job training and the participants of the training courses

Entwicklung der Biokristallisation für die Unterscheidung von Proben mittels computerunterstützter Texturanalyse und visueller Bildauswertung

Because of the growing market in organic produce screening methods are needed which allow the characterization of the food. Since many years the so called biocrystallization technique has been used to characterize products derived from different farming systems yet the method was not validated. The results of our investigations in the last three years show that the method can fulfill the requirements for the validation process due to international standards. The sample preparation and the crystallization procedures could be standardised and documented. For the crystallization factors of influence were described and controlled. In addition to the traditionally used visual evaluation a new computerized image texture analysis program was succesfully applied. Furthermore visual evaluation was standardized due to international norms used in sensory analysis. With a panel of trained people, crystal patterns from fresh and freeze dried carrot samples can be differentiated as statistically significant. This is a siginificant step forward because this allows the development of a structure analysis programme and will contribute to connect the different approaches within the researches in this field