New Food Safety Facility to Train Foreign Lab Techs

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The University of Maryland has opened a new training center to help ensure imported food is safe.

The new International Food Safety Training Laboratory will use federal regulators to train foreign laboratory technicians in areas such as U.S. government standards and the latest technology and food safety methods. The university says the aim of the program is to improve the safety of food imports before they reach the U.S. border. And that’s important because nearly two-thirds of fresh fruits and produce sold in this country is imported, as is a significant proportion of seafood.

The College Park laboratory’s first complete training course began this week with a class of technicians and laboratory supervisors from China and Indonesia