The Analytical Laboratory Accreditation Criteria Committee (ALACC) released its latest version of the AOAC Laboratory Accreditation Guidelines for food, dietary supplement, pharmaceutical, and cannabis laboratories last year. This guideline has been a staple of ISO accredited laboratories for over 20 years providing guidance and requirements beyond those in the ISO 17025 standard. The earlier versions of this document were meant to provide guidance for implementing ISO 17025 in food laboratories. While the guidelines provide meaningful information throughout the standard, the highlight of the document are the appendices. Appendix A provides criteria and frequencies for calibration, verification, and maintenance of equipment. Appendices B and C provide criteria for food microbiology and chemistry, respectively. Appendices D, E, and F cover the specific markets of pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, and cannabis, respectively.
Over the years, it has become a standard assessed by several accrediting bodies beyond just the ISO 17025 requirements. This course will provide an overview of the guidelines, show tips on how to develop a compliant Quality Management System, and provide strategies for planning and executing internal audits and technical record/traceability. Registration includes an electronic version of the current ALACC document.

Training Course: Laboratory Accreditation Guidelines (ALACC)

This training course is required for all experts and independent laboratory analysts involved in activities for the AOAC Research Institute (RI) Performance Tested Methods℠ (PTM) program and any others interested in method validation. It will include sessions covering the general validation concepts as well as PTM program requirements, plus the technical requirements for microbiology methods and chemistry methods in a variety of matrices. These include selectivity, matrix studies, robustness, and a manufacturing QA assessment. The course will explain the types of validation and their purpose, cover harmonization with other programs including Official Methods of AnalysisSM (OMA) and address the difference between validation and verification in an ISO 17025 context.
Primarily focused on a single lab validation approach, this course will highlight the roles involved, including AOAC Technical Assessors, Volunteer Experts, Expert Reviewers, Independent Laboratories, and Method Developers. It will discuss the development of protocols for new methods, as well as method modifications, and preparation of manuscripts.

Training Course: Method Validation

Have you ever witnessed a dreadful scientific presentation – full of put you to sleep delivery, poor slides, and a difficult to get message? Public speaking can be a thrilling component in a successful science career. Unfortunately, it also can be one of the most fearful of lifetime events. This workshop will provide tips on how to deliver a great presentation, including building effective PowerPoint slides, exploiting thespian tools to command an audience, the role of timing, why dress for success works, and how to skillfully address audience questions. Attendees will witness many common public speaking errors and how to prevent their occurrence.
Target Attendees: Students, new professionals, and those wishing to be more effective speakers.
Learning Outcomes: This fun and dynamic workshop will provide attendees with a basketful of subliminal and conscious tools that will impact the success of any presentation format.

The Presentation on Presentations

The Stakeholder Program on Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals (SPIFAN) is a global, stakeholder-driven initiative focused on the development and validation of analytical methods for infant formula and adult nutritional products. Through collaborative engagement with industry, government, and academic experts, SPIFAN identifies key nutrients and analytes, establishes Standard Method Performance Requirements (SMPRs), and facilitates the adoption of fit-for-purpose methods. The program supports harmonized, science-based standards that help ensure product safety and nutritional accuracy.
Over the past year, SPIFAN has published the Standard Method Performance Requirements (SMPR®) for Milk Fat Globule Membrane Proteins and is launching new working groups to address emerging priorities, such as galactosyllactoses, free amino acids, and Appendix L.
Thanks to the support of the 2025 members of SPIFAN, Abbott Nutrition, Danone, Fonterra, FrieslandCampina, Nestlé, and Reckitt Nutrition, the program continues to advance analytical methods to foster global regulatory compliance, public health, and fair trade, while anticipating future developments in nutritional science. We also want to give our appreciation to Eurofins for supporting as the moderator, as well as the International Special Dietary Foods Industries (ISDI) for their coordination role.
We ask that the Advisory Panel members stay for a picture directly following the session.

Stakeholder Program on Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals (SPIFAN) Meeting - Morning Session

Food analytical methods are classified as either continuous or categorical based on their response type. When a qualitative method is proposed as a standard assay, it must be validated to demonstrate its suitability for the intended purpose. This validation process depends on the availability of standard reference materials or an established reference method. While international standards provide guidance for this process, misinterpretations of performance characteristics—such as the limit of detection, level of detection, relative limit of detection, and probability of detection, in combination with statistical models ranging from the normal and Poisson distributions to the beta-binomial distribution and beyond —have led to inconsistencies. Adding to this complexity, different validation standards use different validation criteria. As a result, there is a growing need for harmonization to ensure comparability across methods. In this context, the potential application of Bayesian methods also arises. The potential of a Bayesian approach for a practical equivalence procedure has never been developed to provide an equivalence estimate in cases where results from similar matrices are compared. This Workshop will review the goals of categorical testing, current standard methods for validation and determining equivalence and the possibilities for potentially harmonizing or interchanging results from them. 

Binary Methods: Goals, Performance Statistics, Validation, and Future Harmonization

This session brings together a series of analytical updates starting from the collaboratively tested suitability of an LC/MS/MS method for quantifying 128 residual veterinary drugs in six various food matrices (honey, milk, egg, beef, pork liver, and lard) to end with the full display of a reliable sample automatized and LC-GC/hyphenated-chromatographic determination of mineral oil saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons in a broad range of food matrices. In addition, you will hear about the multi-addressing detection and quantification of ergot alkaloids in wheat by triple combination of ELISA, LC-MS/MS and LC-HRMS approaches. And it will be possible to learn from a GC-MS/MS headspace method tracking the carcinogenic ethylene oxide and 2-chloroethanol residues in several multicomponent spice seasoning highly challenging matrices. Interested in these challenges? Please come and have a seat and talk with us.

Chromatography Frontiers: Method Development for Complex Contaminant Analysis in Food Matrices

Fostering Students and Early Career Researchers: An Interactive Mentoring Session

The AOAC Stakeholder Program on Infant Formula and Adult Nutritionals (SPIFAN) will be hosting an afternoon session to delve into greater detail and in-depth discussions on key topics relevant to the infant formula and adult nutritionals industry.

SPIFAN Meeting - Afternoon Session

AOAC’s mission to ensure the safety and integrity of foods and other products that impact public health requires identifying and meeting new challenges as they arise. The Analytical Solutions Forum (ASF) is a mechanism for AOAC’s global stakeholders to identify emerging analytical needs, propose actions to address them, and identify emerging technologies to support them. 
This session of the ASF provides updates from the AOAC Presidential Task Force on Official Methods of Analysis (OMA) Program, highlights current programs and projects that originated from recent ASF discussions, and brings new topics and emerging issues, including standard development and method needs for protein analysis, Salmonella testing, PFAS and other concerns in cosmetics, microbial built environment testing, or implementation of AI in laboratories
Bring your ideas, standard development and method needs to the open forum discussion, so they could be considered by AOAC as potential new initiatives!  

Analytical Solutions Forum (ASF)

Quantitative analysis of food components is essential for optimizing food formulation, enhancing the effectiveness of clinical trials, informing nutrition policy, and improving AI applications in the food domain. To support these goals, a suite of advanced analytical tools has been developed for the two most abundant food components: carbohydrates and proteins. These tools significantly improve upon current methodologies by offering high sensitivity and quantitative precision across a broad range of molecular sizes—from monomers to large polymers.
For protein analysis, the platform encompasses metabolomic (amino acids and dipeptides), peptidomic (peptides), and proteomic (whole proteins) approaches. Similarly, carbohydrate analysis spans monosaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides, corresponding to metabolomic and glycomic levels. Carbohydrates present unique challenges due to their structural complexity and diverse linkage patterns, which often lead to misclassification in nutritional databases and inaccuracies in clinical interpretations.
To address these issues, a comprehensive multi-glycomic platform has been developed. Carbohydrates are fractionated into alcohol-soluble and alcohol-insoluble components. The soluble fractions are analyzed using advanced liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify free mono-, di-, and oligosaccharides. The insoluble fractions undergo three specialized LC-MS workflows that enable detailed monosaccharide quantification, linkage analysis (covering over 100 types), and polysaccharide identification and quantification.
These multi-omics methods are rapid, automated, and highly quantitative, allowing for in-depth structural characterization of both whole and processed foods, as well as their interactions with the digestive tract and the gut microbiome. The resulting data not only inform clinical trials and nutrition policy but also enhance AI models by providing detailed structural-functional insights into key food components.

Awards Ceremony & Keynote Address

#### The AOAC INTERNATIONAL Annual Meeting: A Unique Analytical Science Opportunity

The AOAC Annual Meeting & Exposition provides unparalleled professional development, networking, and collaboration in methods-based science. 

* **Businesses**: Meet scientific and regulatory experts and engage with new trends and standards.

* **Scientists**: Build professional expertise and network with your community to share information and best practices.

* **Regulators**: Leverage unprecedented opportunity for stakeholder collaboration on complex testing and analysis challenges, helping improve compliance and public safety.

* **Academia**: Engage with colleagues – both students and faculty – at all career and research levels.


#### Keep Pace with Innovation
* Take advantage of emerging methods, best practices, and trending topics like food fraud and cannabis purity and potency. 
* Discover new technologies, from DNA authentication to genomic microbial identification. 
* Get professional insights from industry insiders through the AOAC Spotlight.

#### Experience the AOAC Analytical Solutions Forum

This multi-faceted “idea incubator” focuses on regulatory changes and emerging food safety issues. A plenary and two breakout sessions feature thought-provoking ideas to identify and meet analytical needs.

The 2025 AOAC INTERNATIONAL Annual Meeting & Exposition was held in San Diego, California, USA.

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2025 AOAC INTERNATIONAL Annual Meeting & Exposition

The AOAC Annual Meeting & Exposition provides unparalleled professional development, networking, and collaboration in methods-based science.

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