Food Safety & Quality Scientific Posters

According to ISO/IEC 17025, testing laboratories should ensure they operate competently and are able to generate valid results. Implementation of Quality Control or Verification of methods requires the use of strains. Genetically Modified Microorganisms (GMM) (e.g., GFP tagged organisms) offer a less risky approach minimizing the impact of cross contamination events securing laboratory results.

Learn more about microbial detection in a variety of plant-based alternative dairy beverages.

Infection with nontyphoidal Salmonella bacteria is a leading cause of foodborne deaths and hospitalizations in the United States each year. Salmonella outbreaks associated with ground beef have persisted and in fact several recent large outbreaks have heightened the ongoing concerns of its safety. The bioMérieux GENE-UP® Salmonella (SLM) Kit is a real-time PCR Assay capable of detecting low levels of Salmonella even in the presence of high background products such as ground beef.

The incidence of campylobacteriosis has been steadily rising in the US since 2011 (FoodNet), and despite the ongoing mitigation steps by the poultry industry, the testing raw poultry remains an effective strategy to surveil the incidence of Campylobacter sp. In the population. The GENE-UP® Campylobacter assay (CAM) is a Real-Time PCR assay that utilizes FRET hybridization chemistry to provide simultaneous multi-target detection (Figure 1b) of all three Campylobacter strains of interest.

Ensuring the quality of beverage products is complicated via traditional microbial detection methods due to a varied microbiome. Detailed analysis of spoilage organisms allows for a specified assay to rapidly and efficiently monitor for threats to product quality.

Rapid Salmonella quantification methods that are comparable to the classical most probable number (MPN) method would provide industry with the ability to make decisions about product disposition. The GENE-UP® QUANT Salmonella™ (QTS) assay utilizes an enrichment free sample prep paired with a multiplex detection method targeting a highly conserved pan-Salmonella genetic signature and an internal amplification control on the GENE-UP® providing Salmonella quantification in raw poultry in less than 4 h.

The USDA-FSIS has indicated that only ~10% of beef trim samples that contain stx, eae, and a serogroup gene can be culture confirmed. Newly commercialized virulence-associated biomarkers that are present in potentially pathogenic eae-positive STEC may reduce the number of non-culture confirmable PCR screening results and increase the reliability of STEC screening assays.

TEMPO® YM is an AOAC® Performance Tested Method℠ (PTM) approved for the automated enumeration of yeasts and molds in a variety of foods. The method utilizes a selective dehydrated culture medium and a Yeast and Mold (YM) enumeration card containing 48 wells across three dilutions for the automatic determination of the Most Probable Number (MPN).

Rapid methods such as PCR have been making in-roads into routine nutraceutical and dietary supplements testing. The potential of multiplex PCR for routine detection of multiple pathogens has yet to be ascertained. The diversity and ever-growing list of matrices in these industries further exacerbates the challenges for such methods and thereby the method compatibility should be reviewed with the adoption of new technology.

Standard molecular methods (without immunoconcentration step) of STEC detection in food matrices based on stx and eae genes co-detection and Top5/7 serogroup associated genes may lead to identify a significant number of false positives without detection of all enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) potentially present. These major limits may cause either a substantial economic loss for food industry and a food safety risk for consumers.

In the United States, the production and consumption of green leafy produce has been steadily rising. The most recent attribution estimates from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013) indicated leafy produce to be responsible for the highest amount of foodborne illnesses and among the top five causes of foodborne hospitalizations and deaths. Between 1973 and 2012, Salmonella and Shiga toxinproducing Escherichia coli (STEC) species were the top bacterial pathogens responsible for outbreaks caused by leafy vegetables.