Safety's in big demand
Mounting wariness about hazardous substances in food, toys, and other consumer goods is creating opportunities for Bay State makers of devices that detect such dangers.
Marc N. Casper had two thoughts when he noticed a flurry of warnings about the safety of Chinese imports, ranging from pet food and toothpaste to toys.
As a father of two boys, Casper wanted to make sure his family was safe. But as an executive at Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the Waltham maker of lab equipment, he also sensed an opportunity. Thermo Fisher supplies manufacturers, retailers, and other companies with sophisticated equipment to spot tainted products, including a hand-held scanner that can be used to detect lead in toys, before they hit store shelves.
"We're optimistic about the growth prospects," Casper said.
With Americans increasingly fretting over the safety of imports, Massachusetts instrument makers are poised to benefit. Some companies, including Thermo Fisher, PerkinElmer Inc. in Waltham, and Waters Corp. in Milford, are touting instruments to help companies and regulators detect dangerous substances in food or toys.
PerkinElmer, for instance, began selling a device this month that detects melamine, the toxic chemical recently discovered in pet food imported from China. PerkinElmer said the device, developed with an independent testing laboratory, costs $100,000 to $115,000. A PerkinElmer executive also testified on food safety issues at a government meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.
And at a congressional hearing last month, US Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Malden, asked a government safety regulator whether every toy company in the United States should be required to use Thermo Fisher's handheld lead scanner or a similar device. The Thermo Fisher device, called the Niton XRF metal analyzer, costs $25,000 to $50,000.
To be sure, food and toy safety already accounts for a significant revenue stream for Thermo Fisher and PerkinElmer. But industry executives say demand for such devices is continuing to grow, both because of stricter regulations around the world and voluntary industry efforts to tighten safety standards.
For instance, Casper said Thermo Fisher's food and safety business, which already generates several hundred million dollars in sales, is growing at well over 10 percent a year. And PerkinElmer said it just inked a deal to supply lead detectors to Mattel, one of the country's biggest toy makers.
Overall, PerkinElmer chief executive Gregory L. Summe estimated the company's food safety and environmental divisions (which include devices to detect lead in toys) account for one-fifth of its $1.7 billion in annual revenue. Like Thermo, PerkinElmer said its business is expanding by more than 10 percent a year.
"It is a market that is continuing to grow for us, and we think will continue to grow," Summe said.
The recent safety scares in the United States have also put pressure on companies and regulators to step up their testing.
Starting in March, several pet food makers were forced to conduct a series of recalls after discovering some of their products were tainted with poisonous chemicals, sickening and killing family pets around the country. The problem was eventually traced to toxic chemicals in wheat gluten imported from China, sparking fears that the US food supply could be vulnerable. Most wheat gluten, a protein used in thousands of food products here, is imported from China.
In subsequent months, companies and regulators also reported finding dangerous toxins in everything from seafood to toothpaste to children's toys. In recent months, Mattel and other toy companies have recalled millions of toys from China that contained lead paint. And last month, a local cancer charity, The Friends of Mel Foundation, recalled 200,000 bracelets after discovering some of the beads contained excessive lead; the beads were made in China and Turkey.
Contamination problems aren't limited to Chinese imports. In October, Topps Meat Co. in New Jersey shut down shortly after it issued the second-largest beef recall in the nation's history. Some of the company's meat was tainted with a potentially deadly strain of E. coli bacteria.
Last year, retailers across the country were forced to pull bags of spinach from store shelves, after one person died and more than 200 became ill. The problem was eventually traced to bacteria from a California spinach farm.
While Thermo Fisher and PerkinElmer offer a broad range of safety products, some other local companies target segments of the market.
For instance, Waters spokesman Gene Cassis said the Milford company makes detectors used to spot certain types of chemicals in the food supply. Cassis said the products account for about 5 percent of Waters' $1.4 billion in annual sales and the segment has been growing at double digit rates. Customers include Pepsi and the Food and Drug Administration.
Meanwhile, BioTrove Inc., a privately held Woburn company, said it recently sold technology to the Centers for Disease Control to help identify salmonella, E. coli, and other bacteria in tainted food. A CDC spokesman said the order was for about $43,000.
And Bruker BioSciences Corp., a Billerica instruments company, has opened a customer training and demonstration center in Beijing, where it showcases some of its food safety equipment.
Still, much of the recent concern has focused on imports. Increasingly, executives say, products are crossing borders, so more suppliers of testing equipment are needed to ensure the products meet US and European safety standards. At the same time, the boom in international trade has made it trickier to track down the source of contaminated goods when something goes awry.
Take imported shrimp. If someone became ill from it, PerkinElmer's Summe said, someone would have to figure out if the toxins came from the original shrimp, something they were fed, or the water where they were caught or raised.
The problem could also involve cooking, processing, packaging, or transportation somewhere along the way to the consumer - a pipeline that could stretch halfway around the world and involve numerous companies.
That could force retailers to demand testing at every link in the supply chain.
"The supply chain is becoming global in nature," Summe said. "You didn't have to check when you knew the guy who grew the chickens down the road."
Todd Wallack can be reached at twallack@globe.com. 