Food & Beverage LIMS

Ensuring Quality At The Kitchen Table

Whether you grow, manufacture, supply, or distribute, the safety and quality of the products you deliver is vital to the world’s food supply chain. The STARLIMS Food and Beverage LIMS solution provides powerful and flexible tools to monitor processes, manage costs, and ensure regulatory compliance, so you can focus on delivering quality products that your customers deserve. From raw materials to the final product, the STARLIMS solution supports complete product tracking and traceability throughout the entire product lifecycle. 

Have Confidence In Compliance And Best Practices

• STARLIMS has been designed to help your organization comply with a wide range of different regulatory standards, including FSMA, HACCP, HARCP, GFSI, GLP, GMP, CODEX, European Law, and, 21CFR Part 11
• Use flexible reporting functions that meet the complex requirements of and external customers, including production of Certificates of Analysis (COAs)
• Access an entire sample history, display full audit trails, extract e-signature information, and much more
• Track and manage analyst training and certifications for tests and methods, and schedule courses and re-certification
• Create control charts, configure rules to track within the chart, and view the charts throughout the sample and product lifecycle. Automatically detect rule violations which can drive further actions on samples and tests. Advanced SQC and control charting are powered by Northwest Analytics (NWA)

Manage An Efficient Sample And Product Lifecycle

• Automate routine food lab data analysis, sample lifecycle and complex calculations by eliminating the need for time-consuming manual data-entry and non-value added manual processes
• Configure triggers, sample points, re-sample and re-test workflows. Link to open investigations through the integrated investigation module
• Generate worksheet/list, result calculations and result specifications comparisons
• Manage protocols, sample inventory, studies, pulling schedules, conditions and locations for both manufacturing and formulation stability studies
• Ensure that all scheduled samples are properly collected and tested with the environmental monitoring module and efficiently manage sample points using visual floor plans
• Create recipes and batches associated with recipes, and test them through standard QM workflows. Download the formulation management application brochure (PDF, 386 KB) for capability details
• Outsource tasks with third-party (internal or external) laboratories, including an entire lifecycle to allow the shipment of samples to third-party laboratories for testing 

Manage Materials and Equipment

• Store, manage and control all documents with version control associated with the workflow.
• Manage the storage of samples and storage locations. Store your samples in hierarchical storage containers and view the contents of each level of the storage hierarchy
• Manage suppliers of raw materials and laboratory consumables
• Manage all laboratory materials, inventory items and consumables and its associated workflows
• Track and document equipment, QC standards, calibration and maintenance events
• Schedule equipment maintenance and calibration events, and automate alerts
• Generate equipment control charts and monitor instrument variations over time

Streamline and Automate Day-to-Day food lab Logistics

• View key performance indicators, including bottlenecks, sample turnaround times, and out-of-specifications samples to make resource decisions
• Assign work to analysts and equipment based on availability and workload
• Interface to several systems for data sharing, including third-party systems SAP, Empower, Chromeleon, and other internal enterprise systems (EDMS/DS, MES, etc.)
• Future-proof system: Changes to business needs and working practices can be readily supported and implemented without losing existing functionality or data
• Integrate instruments without the need for complex programming. Parse serial data from an instrument, or from files containing instrument results, directly into fields in the food and beverage LIMS
• Manage customer information, and set up projects for laboratory testing, including test pricing, invoicing, and schedules for sampling and testing

The food and beverage industry is continuing to expand scientifically and at the same time face more regulatory constraints. There has been an increase in the recalls issued and this may be due to the enforcement of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Many recalls are based on the increased capability to perform more effective molecular testing of the products released to the market. As genomic tests are becoming more common for the identification of food borne pathogens, the ability to perform molecular testing, can expands past the inspection laboratories to become part of food and beverage manufacturers quality process prior to the release of product. Thus benefiting the industry by reducing product recalls. And as nutritional science continues to advance, there will be a need to demonstrate the genetic or molecular profile of food and beverage products, again expanding the laboratory’s need to manage molecular processes.

Streamline Day-to-Day Lab Logistics 

• Direct samples to equipment and workflows based on availability and schedules
• Interface to automated specimen handling systems and analytical instruments, system-to-system communications via web services, file transfer (text, CSV, HL7, ASCII, etc.), and direct database communications
• Manage all molecular materials, inventory items and consumables and their associated workflows
• Manage molecular equipment lists, scheduled maintenance events, calibrations, and QC standards

Manage efficient sample and batch testing

• Manage molecular protocols, where existing workflows can be used as templates for new protocols, where reference ranges, triggers, reflexes and reporting requirements can be configured
• Support sample and test workflow from start to finish, configure triggers, sample points, re-sample and re-test workflows
• Allow for batch adjustment and multiple batch templates to be used in one complex workflow
• Evaluate sample test results against different sets of specifications and control the progress of the sample or batch through its lifecycle

Have Confidence in compliance and best practices

• STARLIMS has been designed to help your organization comply with a wide range of different regulatory standards of the food and beverage industry including FSMA, HACCP, HARCP, GFSI, GLP, GMP, CODEX 
• STARLIMS also supports compliance with a wide range of different laboratory regulatory standards, including FDA 21 CFR Part 11 and the EU Annex 11 guidelines, ISO 17025, ASCLD-LAB, CALEA, cGXP and other accreditation standards including newest 18 CAP checklist requirements  

Many Types of food & beverage Labs Use STARLIMS

STARLIMS food and beverage customers include:

• National and regional food and safety monitoring authorities
• A governmental agricultural authority
• A global confectionary brand’s research center
• A premium spirits manufacturer's quality control laboratories
• A multinational beverage manufacturer's quality control laboratories
• Food additives and condiment producers
• World-leading soup/condiments manufacturer's quality control laboratories
• Leading dairy and cheese manufacturers
• World-leading nutraceutical manufacturers