Pesticide Residue Testing, Radiation Testing and Bacterial Testing for the Imported Food Office, London Borough of Hillingdon

The London Borough of Hillingdon is responsible for overseeing imported food and feed controls at its Imported Food Office located at London Heathrow Airport. European Community legislation requires imports of certain food and feed products to be introduced into the United Kingdom only via approved inspection facilities. The Imported Food Office at London Heathrow Airport is an approved inspection facility for both imports of products of animal origin, and those not of animal origin.

The London Borough of Hillingdon are looking for a supplier or suppliers that can analyse imports of feed and food for the following contaminants:

1- Lot A - Pesticide residues

2. - Lot B - Caesium-134 and Caesium-137
3. - Lot C - Microbiological contaminants
4. - Lot D - Other Miscellaneous
5. - Lot E - All of the above

The London Borough of Hillingdon reserve the right to award some or all of the tests shown above.

The majority of imports that are examined by London Borough of Hillingdon Imported Food Officers are fresh, highly perishable products. All samples taken are formal official control samples. The samples taken fall into two categories:

Those where legislation requires the consignment to be detained pending the results of analysis. An expedited turnaround time is therefore required.

Those samples taken as part of surveillance activities. The consignment is not detained pending the results of sampling. These samples are not time critical, and an expedited turnaround time is not required.

Quotations and turnaround times should be provided for both:

Consignments that have been sampled and will be detained pending the results of analysis (time critical samples).

Consignments that have been sampled and released pending the results of analysis (expedited turnaround time not required).

The detailed requirements are set out in the tender documentation that is available from the Council's e-tendering portal, www.capitalesourcing.com