Agha Fakhar, Director General of the Sindh Food Authority, has stated that his organisation will initially create a food lab in Karachi, and that in the second phase, such laboratories will be established in other districts of Sindh.
The goal of creating these laboratories is to speed edible oil testing methods. He remarked this while touring the training facility and meeting participants. Nutrition International provided a 3-day training of trainers on High-performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) for technical professionals from the Sindh Food Authority at the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi.
The primary goal of the training was to orient and strengthen the Sindh Food Authority’s technical ability in HPLC and CDR Food Lab.
Provincial Programme Manager of NI, Mueen Qureshi thanked all the participants of the training. He shared that this training is valuable for the technical staff of SFA and would enhance the capacity of staff conducting various tests of edible oil. Mueen Qureshi also thanked the officers of the Sindh Food Authority for ensuring their utmost support in promoting fortification practices at all levels.
Prof Dr Syed Asad Saeed, a technical committee member of SFA, held a detailed session in which he briefly explained the history of chromatography and its usage in conducting different tests of edible oil. He shared with the participants about chromatography techniques, selection of solvents, difference between mobile and stationary phase, its parts and working mechanism of HPLC.
Dr Shakeel Ahmed, head of ICCBS held a second-day session on the CDR Food lab. He briefly explained the practical applications and its related problems along with sample preparations.
Furthermore, he also shared with the participants regarding entire software working and chromatographical reading of graphs, preparation of stock solution and working standards, sample preparation and analysis on HPLC (hands-on training), detailed information about injection, flow rates of solution and solvent in HPLC. He also told about the isocratic and Gradient systems of HPLC. In the end of the training, the certificates were awarded to the participants.
