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About the BfR
Reference laboratories
National reference laboratories work on standards for food
monitoring in order to ensure the safety of food products
throughout the entire EU. For this purpose, 17 reference
laboratories in the areas of food and feed safety and food
hygiene are attached to the BfR. They are divided into two
groups: national reference laboratories in accordance
with Regulation (EC) 882/2004 and other BfR laboratories
with a reference function.
The reference laboratories pursuant to regulation (EC)
882/2004 attached to the BfR are involved in both food
chemistry analysis as well as molecular biological and
microbiological testing. They are appointed by the Fed-
eral Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Their work is based
on various legal regulations such as the German Food
and Feed Code as well as laws and regulations on con-
sumer goods.
The main job of reference laboratories is to develop and
validate methods and to perform laboratory comparison
tests (Interlaboratory Tests) for the purpose of quality as-
surance. The creation of national reference laboratories
guarantees that work is carried out in line with uniform
Reference labs in actual practice: Investigation
of a leptospirosis oubreak in Lower Saxony
Leptospirosis is a feverish infectious disease which
is transmitted from animals to humans. In the sum-
mer of 2014, 45 strawberry pickers in Lower Saxony
contracted leptospirosis with 21 of them requiring
hospital treatment. In cooperation with the health and
veterinary authorities in the administrative districts of
Oldenburg and Cloppenburg, the Regional Health
Office of the state of Lower Saxony and the State
Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety, the
BfR-affiliated consultant laboratory for
Leptospira
examined human blood samples and rodents which
had been caught on the cultivated strawberry fields.
The consultant laboratory identified mice infected
with
L. kirschneri
(sequence type 110) as the prob-
able source of the outbreak. Antibodies against the
pathogen type
L. kirschneri
serovar Grippotyphosa
were also detected among the strawberry pickers by
means of the microscopic agglutination test.
>>
Methods for the control and monitoring of
foods, chemicals and consumer goods are developed
and validated in the BfR reference laboratories.
standards all over Europe. This is of particular importance
for the monitoring and control of food products, which are
fundamentally covered by the principle of the free move-
ment of goods within the European Union. The national
reference laboratories also act as a national link between
the community reference laboratories of the EU and the
food surveillance authorities in the EU member states.
Alongside these national reference laboratories based on
EU law, there are also other institutions of the BfR that
perform a reference function in other contexts. These in-
clude the Reference Laboratory in the “Network of Geneti-
cally Modified Organisms”, the Senior Expert Office for
the Import Control of Wine in accordance with the Wine
Monitoring Ordinance and the Zoonoses Reporting unit.
To determine the presence of mineral oils in food packagings,
control laboratories are reverting to the standard methods of
the national reference laboratories, for example.
