Inspectors authorized by Finnish Food Authority are responsible for collecting official samples. A Regulation issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry declares that standards approved by international bodies are to be applied to analysing.
For analysing samples for self-monitoring, one may apply analysis methods deviating from standards, for example, faster ones.
Finnish Food Authority is national reference laboratory for determining salmonella in feeds. The reference laboratory aims at influencing the high quality of analysis results and the reliability of these.
Comparing with food, it may be more difficult to determine the presence of salmonella in feeds, because of effects from acid treatment, heating and other treatments of the feedstuff. For determining salmonella in feeds, Finnish Food Authority recommends that a method modified on ISO 6579, 2002 (Evira 3543) be applied. The standard method has been modified in that, for example, the incubation time for pre-enriching certain feed types has been set at 30 hours, the relationship between an expanding sample and the pre-enriched one has been altered, and Rambach agar is being applied to determining saccharose-positive salmonella strains.