Global resourcing and productionhave increased the demand for foodmanufacturers to ensure the
safety andintegrity of their products. Though aweakening U.S. dollar and rising costsoriginally
forced U.S. food manufactur-ers to consider less expensive importedprotein sources, they have
had toreevaluate that strategy because of thevast opportunity for adulterated ship-ments and lack
of accurate and timelytesting procedures. Customs inspec-tors and food manufacturers receive
amultitude of large shipments every dayof wheat gluten, rice protein, soy meal,and other
protein-rich ingredients.Laboratories are already backlogged,and having to wait days for test
resultscreates a bottleneck that costs suppliersand end users time and money. Moreimportantly,
test methods that do notmeasure protein directly are inaccurateand can inadvertently allow tainted
orsubstandard ingredients into the foodsupply, jeopardizing consumers!ˉ
healtas well as their trust in the manufactur-ers of the products they use.