Other Sources of Information
Other types of information you might want to look at are:
- Legislation - it is important to keep abreast of the latest food law and standards information. Government and industry sites are the best place to look for this, but there may also be links from your library or company websites. Try Foodline Legal from Leatherhead Food International
- Standards - approved technical specifications covering certain requirements for quality and testing processes for products and services. The BSi website is a useful resource.
- Patents - a patent gives the owner sole rights to make, use or sell their invention within a location for a set period of time. The key source for patent information is the British Library Patent and Intellectual Property Collections.
- Datasets - these contain information on food composition, genomics and safety data. Many of these datasets are becoming available free of charge, hosted by governmental and non governmental organisations, much of it originating in the US.
- Statistics play an extremely important role in studying and understanding all biological materials including foodstuffs. A review of over 100 statistics packages is given at http://www.statistics.com/
- Software packages enable an increasing array of predictive tools and models which may be especially applicable to food processing and shelf-life studies.
- Blogs can be helpful ways to keep up to date with issues in food science. Examples include UK FSA, Just Food, Junkfood Science
- Company and competitive business information
- Ingredient suppliers and new products and packaging
- Best practices and industry guidelines
- Government information including DEFRA, USDA, EFSA