WELLESLEY, Mass. — According to a new technical market research report, Food Safety Testing: The U.S. Market from BCC Research (www.bccresearch.com), the U.S. market for food safety testing will be worth $2.1 billion in 2007.
This is expected to increase to more than $2.8 billion by 2012, a compound average annual growth rate of 5.8 percent.
The market is broken down by contaminant type including pathogens, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), toxins, residues and others. Of these, pathogen testing has the largest share of the market. Valued at nearly $1.8 billion in 2007, this segment is expected to be worth $2.4 billion by 2012, a growth rate of 5.1 percent.
The second largest segment, GMOs, was worth an estimated $106 million in 2007 and will reach $193 million by 2012, a growth rate of 12.7.
The potency of toxins and the need to meet domestic and international tolerance limits should propel this segment from a $78 million market in 2007 to $135 million in 2012, a growth rate 11.6 percent over the next 5 years. Residue testing will grow from a $67 million market in 2007 to $85 million in 2012.
The smallness market value for other contaminants ($8 million in 2007 and $10 million in 2012) is not indicative of their importance. An expanded federal surveillance program for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the number of American allergy sufferers, religious practices and the chance of economic fraud toward comminuted meat species, together with the chance of industrial chemicals entering the food should sustain the 4.6 percent growth rate projected over the next 5 years.