Ensuring imports' safety offers lucrative business opportunities

pressure on companies and regulators to step up their testing. Starting in March, several pet food makers were forced to conduct a series of recalls after discovering some of their products were tainted with poisonous chemicals, sickening and killing family pets around the country. The problem was eventually traced to toxic chemicals in wheat gluten imported from China, sparking fears that the U.S. food supply could be vulnerable. Most wheat gluten, a protein used in thousands of food products in the United States, is imported from China. In subsequent months, companies and regulators also reported finding dangerous toxins in everything from seafood to toothpaste to children’s toys. In recent months Mattel and other toy companies have recalled millions of toys from China which contained lead paint. Last month, a local cancer charity, The Friends of Mel Foundation, recalled 200,000 bracelets after discovering some of the beads contained excessive lead; the beads were made in China and Turkey. Contamination problems are not limited to Chinese imports. In October, Topps Meat in New Jersey shut down shortly after it issued the second-largest beef recall in U.S. history. Some of the company’s meat was tainted with a potentially deadly strain of E. coli bacteria. Last year retailers across the country were forced to pull bags of spinach from store shelves, after one person died and more than 200 became ill. The problem was eventually traced to bacteria from a California spinach farm.

Thermo Fisher and PerkinElmer offer a broad range of safety products, but some Massachusetts companies target segments of the market. Waters makes detectors used to spot certain types of chemicals in the food supply. The products account for about 5 percent of Waters’ $1.4 billion in annual sales and the segment has been growing at double digit rates. Customers include Pepsi and the Food and Drug Administration. BioTrove, a privately held Woburn-based company, said it recently sold technology to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to help identify salmonella, E. coli, and other bacteria in tainted food. A CDC spokesman said the order was for about $43,000. Billerica-based Bruker BioSciences , an instruments company, has opened a customer training and demonstration center in Beijing, where it showcases some of its food safety equipment. Much of the recent concern, though, has focused on imports. Increasingly, executives say, products are crossing borders, so more suppliers of testing equipment are needed to ensure the products meet U.S. and European safety standards. At the same time, the boom in international trade has made it trickier to track down the source of contaminated goods when something goes awry. Take imported shrimp. If someone became ill from it, PerkinElmer’s Summe said, someone would have to figure out if the toxins came from the original shrimp, something they were fed, or the water where they were caught or raised. The problem could also involve cooking, processing, packaging, or transportation somewhere along the way to the consumer — a pipeline that could stretch halfway around the world and involve numerous companies.

This very complexity is a boon to innovative technology companies and savvy investors: It would force retailers to demand testing at every link in the supply chain. “The supply chain is becoming global in nature,” Summe said. “You didn’t have to check when you knew the guy who grew the chickens down the road.”