Application Title: New Jersey Food Testing Program - Food Safety and Defense (2020-2025) Project Title: Qualitative and Quantitative Determination of Pesticides in Fruit- and Vegetable-based Beverages by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Quadrupole Time-of-Flight (HPLC-QToF) Analysis Project Summary – Discipline D: Special Projects, Analytical Track 3: Method Development and Validation The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) is pursuing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Laboratory Flexible Funding Model cooperative agreement focused on improving the capability and capacity of NJ to maintain food safety and security. Chemical Terrorism, Biomonitoring, Medicinal Marijuana, and Food Testing Laboratory (CT Laboratory) housed within NJDOH’s Environmental Chemistry Laboratory Services (ECLS) will participate in the method development of an expanded pesticides method for juice- and vegetable- based beverages. The Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) methods CHE.0006 and CHE.0008 are excellent for the screening of food for toxins and poisons, including some pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides. However, these are wide ranging methods that do not include the full list of pesticides applied commercially and because the are primarily screening methods, they target analytes at around parts-per-million (ppm) levels. Low- level pesticides far below ppm levels can go undetected and remain in food items in markets. Low-level pesticides pose greater health risks if consumed, especially for babies or children. To address this food safety issue, a highly sensitive pesticide method capable of analyzing over 65 pesticides will be developed by the CT Laboratory. The laboratory will use its expertise and experience developing such a method for marijuana testing to create a method usable for food stuffs, starting with juice- and vegetable-based beverages. This new method will expand the number of target analytes to more than 68 pesticides, including most of pesticides listed in the NJ Pesticide Use Survey conducted in 2015, and will significantly lower detection limits down to parts-per-billion (ppb) level. This capability will provide more information for the FDA to determine measured pesticide levels that put the public’s health at risk. The CT Laboratory will use this method to support other food pesticide research by identifying and confirming the presence of pesticides in various foods as requested by the FDA. By conducting the work detailed in this proposal and managing an integrated food safety system, ECLS will be able to expand its food defense and safety activities while further safeguarding public health and provide the FDA with additional network capability.