NY AGM Food Laboratory - Project Summary/Abstract: The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NY AGM) has an expansive and robust food safety inspection program and a regulatory food safety testing laboratory. The Food Laboratory, a division within the NY AGM, has a mission to provide expert state of the art analytical testing in support of food safety programs in New York State. The Food Laboratory, through food testing, provides support to the divisions of Food Safety and Inspection, and Milk Control and Dairy Services. It is the primary servicing laboratory for the New York manufactured food regulatory program and is accredited to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard and AOAC ALACC Criteria. The Food Laboratory has comprehensive testing programs for microbiological contamination in food and beverages. If funded for Special Projects and Analytical Track 3 – Method Development and Method Validation, the Food Laboratory will conduct preliminary, short-term or exploratory investigations that focus on the feasibility of a new method and/or technology. These projects could include proof of concept for new analytical approaches, method development for representative food matrices, single laboratory validations of methods, matrix or platform extensions, or multi-laboratory validation research studies. If funded, the following activities will be part of Food Laboratory deliverables: (1) participation in a microbiology method development or validation. The laboratory has interest to participate in a multi-laboratory validation of a Listeria monocytogenes serogrouping method. The laboratory already has a validated QPCR screening method for Salmonella in foods and can, if required, also participate on this multi-laboratory validation, (2) follow FDA guidelines for validation of analytical methods as described in Validation of Analytical Methods for the Detection of Microbial Pathogens in Foods and Feeds (https://www.fda.gov/media/83812/download) and (3) completion of single laboratory validation, when applicable.