Fuzzy green bread. Sour dairy products. Slimy bacon. In the hands of consumers, detecting the presence of spoilage organisms can be easy and quick. After the fact, it’s easy to see how spoilage organisms, such as coliforms, E. coli, Enterobacteriaceae, yeast and mould, can reduce shelf life and contribute to the poor quality of a wide variety of food products.
Detecting the presence of those same spoilage organisms in a food processing environment before they have had a chance to multiply exponentially is not so easy. The traditional method of detection can involve highly skilled and trained microbiologists, and long holding times, to ensure a company’s consumers receive the highest quality products possible.
Neogen’s Soleris rapid microbial detection technology detects spoilage organisms
Improving technology offers the food industry a better way. Neogen’s Soleris rapid microbial detection technology detects spoilage organisms in a fraction of the time and effort of traditional methods.
“Companies that issue certificates of analysis prior to shipment can be forced to hold products as long as five days when using traditional methods. In addition, plating and counting methods can be difficult to interpret when dealing with heavily colored products, or those containing food particulates,” said Neogen’s Janice McGregor. “Soleris rapid microbiology allows companies to continue to release products with a complete certificate of analysis, while reducing the amount of time required to hold product. Decreasing the holding times of product in inventory can increase throughput and reduces the need for additional warehouse space.”
The heart of the Soleris system is its ready-to-use vial. The vial technology measures microbial growth by monitoring pH changes and other biochemical reactions. First, samples of up to 5mL are added to the vials prefilled with microbial growth medium. The Soleris unit then monitors changes in the chemical characteristics of the medium, and reagents change color as metabolic processes occur.
Optical changes are monitored every six minutes in the vial’s agar plug, which is separated from the sample to eliminate interference. Changes in colour, expressed as optical units, are sensed by the photo detector and recorded in the computer. The higher the number of organisms, the faster the detection time.
Neogen conducted multiple studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the Soleris system for the detection of a number of spoilage organisms in a variety of commodities. The Soleris system worked well with the commodities tested. Good correlations were observed between the standard methods and Soleris results, indicating the Soleris method provides accurate results in less time. Soleris also requires less hands-on time and is simpler to perform than the standard methods, in addition to the significant time savings. The spike and recovery experiments also correlated well between the traditional methods and the Soleris results.
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Neogen Europe Ltd is based in Auchincruive, Ayrshire, Scotland.
