A recent contract saw the UK's Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) beat off European competition to provide testing for the Norwegian Food Safety Authority (Mattilsynet), which involved testing for potato viruses and the bacterial diseases brown rot and ring rot.

Fera virologist Adrian Fox: "Fera was the preferred laboratory for this work because of the quality bespoke service we provide.
"It required a range of expertise from across the laboratory, including experts in the areas of virology, bacteriology, glasshouses, and help with sample preparation was gratefully received from wildlife management, microbiology mycology and the Molecular Technology Unit.

"Interserve porters were also a great help in moving the potatoes around the site to get them from cold store to the coring lab."

The project involved a considerable increase in testing volumes within the laboratory with the equivalent of 30,000 potatoes handled, the majority being tested for both viruses and bacteria.