New state of the art laboratory for Lyons Seafoods

Lyons Seafoods, Europe’s leading processor of king prawns, has re-opened its state of the art laboratories in Codford, Wiltshire after an extensive upgrade to the facilities.

The revamped laboratories have been fitted with the most up to date testing kit to ensure maximum product safety, and maintain Lyons Seafoods’ industry leading position.

Jim Landry, technical director at Lyons Seafoods, said: “We are passionate about producing top quality prawns and seafood, and dedicated to ensuring that only the highest grade product is released into the market. The upgrade at our Codford labs is part of a five year, £1 million investment in our facilities and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to a comprehensive and safe worldwide sourcing strategy.

“Our team of fully trained chemists and microbiologists test for all types of pathogens, vibrios and other food related bacteria including antibiotics to ensure the seafood we sell is of a first class standard. We are also currently running melamine and allergen testing trials that we will have in place as standard procedure in the first half of this year.”

The new facility is fitted with a High Performance Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometer Mass Spectrometer – a machine which helps accurately identify and quantify antibiotics. It is CLAS (Campden Laboratory Accreditation Scheme) accredited meaning that the Codford laboratory has been vetted by the leading independent laboratory scheme for food industry laboratories.

Lyons Seafoods is currently one of the few processors in the UK with a fully accredited in-house testing capacity.

January 2009