​​​​​​​​APHL is collaborating with the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to provide documents, best practice guidance, and accreditation strategies and resources to laboratories conducting regulatory food and animal feed testing.

The goal of this webpage is to address the needs of food and feed regulatory laboratories seeking initial, or expanding current scope of accreditation, as well as those looking to improve quality management systems and optimize testing capabilities. Please see a list of available resources below:

Public Resources (click to expand)


Resources for Governmental Food and Animal Feed Laboratories

The APHL Member Resource Center offers a collection of documents created and reviewed by APHL and peers in the public health laboratory field. It gives members access to shared practices, communication tools, protocols, state newsletters and more.

APHL and laboratories seeking accreditation or accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 have also collected resources specific to ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation. If you are looking for a document that adheres to a specific standard (2005 v. 2017), use the links below (note: login required).

ISO/IEC 17025:2005 ISO/IEC 17025:2017

(If you are from a governmental food or animal feed laboratory and are unable to login with the above link, please contact the Food Safety Department at foodsafety@aphl.org)

At the link, find resources pertaining to:

ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Standard

4.1 Ethics
4.3 Document Control
4.4 Contract Review
4.5 Subcontracting
4.6 Purchasing Services and Supplies
4.7 Customer Service
4.8 Customer Complaints
4.9 Quality Event Management
4.10 Improvement 
4.11 Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action
4.12 Preventive Action
4.13 Record Control
4.14 Internal Audits
4.15 Management Review
5.2 Training and Competency
5.3 Accommodations & Environmental Conditions
5.4 Validation-Verification
5.4.1 Method Deviations
5.4.6 Measurement of Uncertainty
5.5 Equipment
5.6 Traceability
5.7 Sampling
5.8 Test Item Receipt/Handling
5.9 Control Charting
5.9 Proficiency Testing
5.10 Review and Approval of Data
​FDA ISO CAP In-Person Meeting, May 2014
FDA ORA Documents
Master Lists
Quality Manuals

ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Standard

4.1 Impartiality
4.2 Confidentiality
6.2 Personnel
6.3 Facilities and environmental conditions
6.4 Equipment
6.5 Metrological traceability
6.6 Externally provided products and services
7.1 Review of requests, tenders and contracts
7.2 Selection, verification and validation of methods
7.3 Sampling
7.4 Handling of test or calibration items
7.5 Technical records
7.6 Evaluation of measurement uncertainty
7.7 Ensuring the validity of results
7.8 Reporting of Results
7.9 Complaints
7. 10 Nonconforming work
7.11 Control of data and information management
8.2 Management system documentation (Option A)
8.3 Control of management system documents (Option A)
8.4 Control of records (Option A)
8.5 Actions to address risks and opportunities (Option A)
8.6 Improvement (Option A)
8.7 Corrective action (Option A)
8.8 Internal audits (Option A)
8.9 Management reviews (Option A)