TrendEnsuring imports' safety offers lucrative business opportunities

Remember our unofficial motto: Show me the security problem and I’ll show you the business opportunity. Take Wlatham, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher Scientific, a maker of lab equipment. 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,” says Marc Casper, an executive at the company. The Boston Globe’s Todd Wallack writes that with Americans increasingly worried about the safety of imports, Massachusetts instrument makers are poised to benefit. Some companies, including Thermo Fisher, Waltham-based PerkinElmer, and Milford-based Waters Corp., are advertising 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. The Massachusetts congressional delegation tries to help: At a congressional hearing last month, Representative Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts; from 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.

Food and toy safety already accounts for a healthy portion of the revenues of Thermo Fisher and PerkinElmer, but industry executives say demand for such devices is continuing to grow owing to stricter regulations around the world and voluntary industry efforts to tighten safety standards. 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. PerkinElmer said it has just signed a deal to supply lead detectors to Mattel, one of the country’s biggest toy makers. Overall, PerkinElmer CEO Gregory 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. As is the case with 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 and safety-induced recalls in the United States have also