White Papers

Environmental Monitoring Program: A Step By Step Guide

This white paper outlines the reasons why you should implement an environmental pathogen management program in your food plant.

Environmental Pathogen Monitoring: An Introduction Guide

In this white paper, let author Jack van der Sanden explain how a strict routine of plant health checks would detect anomalies more quickly and avoid many problems.

data science molecular biology biomerieux gene up typer

When Data Science Meets Molecular Biology for Fast and Easy Pathogen Source Tracking for Food Industries

Fulfilling the need of a high resolution, fast and easy-to-perform pathogen source tracking solution for the food industry.

Why Bringing In-House “Beer Spoiler” Quality Control Testing in 2025 Could be a Smart Move for Craft Brewers

An “annus horribilis” for the craft brewing industry is just coming to an end we hope! A stark contrast for an industry in Europe that has experienced a strong growth in recent years. Over the last 15 years or so craft beer has increasingly captured the drinking public’s interest and while on-line, curb side and supermarket sales increased significantly in 2020, this has far from compensated for the lost restaurant, bar and event sales.

Food Lab

In a world that is demanding more prevention, more transparency and traceability, food microbiology laboratories and the food industry must work together. Food manufacturers heavily rely on food laboratories to verify that processes, environments, and products meet safety and quality standards to protect both consumers and brands.

Beer Quality Testing Assay

INVISIBLE SENTINEL was founded in 2006 with a goal of revolutionizing molecular diagnostics. Although many PCR-based testing tools were available, they were dated and had inherent issues. Existing rapid methods were both complex and expensive or had limitations with regards to sensitivity and accuracy. The mission of INVISIBLE SENTINEL was to radically improve on this, developing a new molecular technology known as VERIFLOW®.

Food-Borne Virus Risk

Minimizing foodborne virus risk in the food industry by implementing multi-parametric solutions.

Food Risks Related to COVID-19

Affecting more than 210 countries in the world, the COVID-19 outbreak is still highly evolving and uncertain in its final magnitude. To contain the pandemic, entire cities and regions have ordered a collective quarantine, stopping most of the local economic activity.

Scientists and farmer researching together and using tablet to collect data in Cannabis farm. Cannabis Cultivation and Hemp Oil Research concept. Medical marijuana plantation.

Inside Cannabis: Why Standardization Matters

The Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), with contributions from bioMérieux, conducted insightful research addressing the pressing need for standardization in the rapidly expanding cannabis industry. The analysis is synthesized in a comprehensive white paper.

Typing and Characterization of Microbial Isolates: Beyond the Species Level

In an early 2022 publication of Nature Scientific Data, 1,484 genomes from Listeria monocytogenes strains collected in 19 European countries were compiled in one dataset, providing the most accurate pangenome of the species to date.

The Future of Food Safety

Automation and new technologies are quietly but surely transforming our labs. As food microbiology turns to new protocols, the industry will need thought leaders and remarkable managers to accompany our people towards new expertise, redefining how the profession operates as the times are changing. Will you be one of them?

#1 - How Healthy is Your Food Factory

“Prevention is better than cure” is a basic principle which seems rather simple to follow. And yet, as Jack Van der Sanden points out, it is probably easier said than done.

#5 - Pathogen Management: Dangerous Assumptions

Environmental pathogens management (EPM) is essential in food factories. Yet, it is often a poorly understood area, surrounded by some dangerous assumptions. As a result, companies may set up suboptimal and counterproductive programs to manage environmental pathogens.

#4 - Help - We Found a Pathogen in Our Plant

Tracking a bear whilst wandering randomly in a forest without a strategy or plan is not easy. The same goes for your pathogen hunt. The best way to go on a pathogen hunt is to establish a strict environmental pathogen monitoring program.

#1 - Why Do You Need One Environmental Pathogen Management Program?

Jack van der Sanden has partnered with bioMérieux, and written a short series of articles about environmental pathogen management in the food industry.

#3 - Pathogen Hunting, We are Going on a Bear Hunt!

Tracking a bear whilst wandering randomly in a forest without a strategy or plan is not easy. The same goes for your pathogen hunt. The best way to go on a pathogen hunt is to establish a strict environmental pathogen monitoring program.

#2 - Pathogen Testing is Dangerous

In this second article from our series about environmental pathogen management in the food industry, Jack van der Sanden exposes some potential mistakes companies make, when embarking on pathogen testing.

#2 - Time for Some Listeria Hysteria?

Listeriosis is a serious microbial infection, fatal in 20 to 30% of cases, caused by eating food contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. Lately, the food industry has faced an increased number of Listeria incidents: from preventive recalls to the deaths of dozens of people.

#3 - What Are We Looking For?

When it comes to pathogens, there have always been two categories of food: low risk or high risk. Traditionally, this distinction was based on the potential of pathogens to contaminate and, subsequently, grow in the product.

#4 - How to Plan a Pathogen Hunt?

In this fourth article in our short series on pathogen management, Jack van der Sanden introduces a risk-based approach to set up your program ; how to define your sampling points, their numbers and their frequencies.

#5 - Surprise: We Found a Pathogen!

This is the last chapter of our short series on environmental pathogen management. The previous articles will have given you some insights for an environmental pathogen management program in your factory.

Cronobacter Food Safety Whitepaper

Download our whitepaper to learn more about Cronobacter bacteria and the dangers it poses to manufacturing facilities.

Brewery Science: VERIFLOW® Technology Overview and Validation Data

Invisible Sentinel was founded in 2006 with a goal of revolutionizing molecular diagnostics. Although many PCR-based testing tools were available, they were dated and had inherent issues. Existing rapid methods were both complex and expensive or had limitations with regards to sensitivity and accuracy. The mission of Invisible Sentinel was to radically improve on this, developing a new molecular technology known as VERIFLOW®.

Campylobacter

Most consumers are familiar with Salmonella as a foodborne disease, but Campylobacter is less commonly known. Campylobacteriosis is the most frequent and most misreported zoonotic disease in humans worldwide, with contaminated poultry meat being a major source of this enteric zoonosis.