07.12.2020 - Lebensmittel

Rapid testing method for Listeria spp. and Listeria monocytogenes in food with detection in six hours (same day result)

Listeria monocytogenes plays an important role as an infectious agent in many different ready-to-eat foods.e.g. meat and fish products, cheese and fresh-cut salads. For this reason food manufacturers often carry out tests for the release of batches. These tests take at least 24 hours, in many cases depending on the method, this can even require serval days.

By using our new rapid method, the release time of batches can be significantly reduced, corrective actions can be taken faster. This is especially important for products with a short shelf life of a few days. Products can be delivered to retailers more quickly. More products can be sold and consumed within the expiry date. This increases safety, the economic success of the product and prevents food waste. Therefore the use of a faster method brings advantages in terms of food safety, economy and sustainability.

Our new rapid testing method is based on the principle of real-time PCR. The difference to existing systems is that we proceed without a pre-enrichment or any other cultivation. While other methods need time for the growth of bacteria, we apply another principle. We use a higher sample quantity and concentrate the target organisms by different steps of sample preparation. By means of these steps we also remove interfering substances that might disturb the PCR reaction.

Our rapid method has a detection limit of < 20 CFU (colony forming units)/g. This is sufficient for the testing of many food samples as one of the two legal criteria for ready-to-eat is 100 CFU/g.

Our tests were performed with different types of food that were representative for the diffenent food categories mentioned above.

For further questions, please contact us…