Ensuring the safety and nutritional quality of special dietary foods requires the use of accurate and precise test methods. The new ISDI website – Test Methods for Special Dietary Foods – provides a comprehensive guide to the most suitable analytical methods for determining nutrients in special dietary foods.

This new platform is designed to help improve food safety and quality, as well as promote harmonised testing globally, by assisting authorities, laboratories and industry professionals to identify the most reliable and internationally recognised test methods. It serves as an up-to-date reference reflecting the global consensus on methods of analysis for special dietary foods.

Jean Christophe Kremer, ISDI Secretary General, said: “This website meets a clear need, which is for anyone working with special dietary foods to be able to find reliable and validated analytical methods. 

“Using methods that aren’t fit for purpose can cause serious problems, for example for manufacturers and regulators. This website will help mitigate those risks by facilitating easy access to the best, most up-to-date analytical methods. By developing such a website, our industry is committing to improving food safety and quality, innovation and global regulatory harmony.”

“Standards are only as good as their implementation and methods of analysis”

The website was presented at the at the ISDI webinar on 'Methods of analysis for special dietary foods: How science ensures food safety and quality for people with special dietary needs' on 10 June 2025. During the webinar, Secretary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, Sarah Cahill, spoke about the importance of internationally agreed methods that ensure food safety and to facilitate trade in safe foods. 

She said: “Standards are only as good as their implementation and methods of analysis. Without such methods we would have no idea whether a commodity was meeting provisions that had been established to ensure the food was safe, or meet the quality parameters or nutritional requirements.

“This new one-stop shop website for methods of analysis for foods for special dietary uses is very complementary to Codex efforts and in line with efforts to increase the recognition and use of Codex Standards.”

Background

Test Methods for Special Dietary Foods was developed by ISDI with the support of AOAC International and the International Dairy Federation to advance regulatory compliance and scientific excellence. 

It currently covers final methods for analysing nutrients in infant formula and follow-up formula. Future updates of the site will expand it to cover other categories of special dietary foods, as well as contaminants. The site provides all the relevant information about the methods, including how they relate to Codex Alimentarius standards, acting as a central reference point with direct links to access methods from the method development organisations.