Eurofins Scientific, a global leader in food testing services, announced the successful acquisition of Craft Technologies Inc., a leading contract laboratory that provides analysis of nutrients, vitamins, carotenoids, bioflavonoids and phytochemicals.

Craft Technologies, located in Wilson, N.C., employs a team of scientists and technical staff who serve private industry, governments and academia worldwide. The laboratory occupies more than 10,000 sq. ft. and includes a range of instrumentation for high-performance liquid chromatography, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, spectrophotometric, fluorometric, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and clinical testing.

Craft Technologies brings a broad scope of analytical services for products ranging from human and animal foods, dietary supplements, biological samples and tissues, Eurofins said.

“I am excited to have Neal Craft and his team bringing strength in the area of testing for biologically active components,” said Lars Reimann, chief scientific officer for Eurofins Scientific. “They have capabilities that are a nice addition to the assays currently performed within the Eurofins Group.”

Craft Technologies has a portfolio of work on fighting global nutrition challenges. Since its founding, Craft Technologies has been involved in global nutrition assessment. In 1994, the laboratory developed a test for vitamin A in dried blood spot that has been used in more than 17 developing nations since then.

Recent work at the lab has focused on meeting analysis needs for vitamin K, vitamin D, bixin/norbixin, curcuminoids, anthocyanins, less common carotenoids, nutritional biomarkers and very-high-resolution separations. Craft Technologies will also bring new vitamin analyses to the Eurofins Group, including assays for hydroxylated vitamin D and vitamin D metabolites in biological samples and vitamin K tests for menaquinones.

Craft Technologies president Neal Craft said, “We are looking forward to a bright future with Eurofins, and we are hoping to make a significant contribution in areas that the group may not have a large presence currently. For a long time, people have said that Craft Technologies is the best-kept secret in this area. By becoming part of the Eurofins international group of labs, we will be able to let the secret out and have a bigger impact as a result of this association.”

Eurofins Scientific, through its subsidiaries, is a global leader in food, environment and pharmaceutical product testing and is a global independent market leader in certain testing and laboratory services for agroscience, genomics, discovery pharmacology and for supporting clinical studies. In addition, it is an emerging player in specialty clinical diagnostic testing in Europe and the U.S. With more than 30,000 staff in 400 laboratories across 42 countries, Eurofins offers a portfolio of more than 150,000 analytical methods for evaluating the safety, identity, composition, authenticity, origin and purity of biological substances and products, as well as for innovative clinical diagnostic.