With the ever increasing standards of food hygiene and customer awareness, the onus is on food manufacturers/handlers to ensure their product is free from bacteria, toxins and potential allergens. Having the confidence of knowing your product has been adequately tested can not only differentiate you from your competitors, but also ensure you stay in business.

There are numerous types of testing for microbes or contaminants in food. Traditional microbiology is the most accurate way to enumerate / discover any potentially dangerous micro-organisms in your product – this process involves collection of sample, dilution, and then pipetting onto growth media to enable reading of results in 24-48 hours.

However, this is relatively time consuming, and so rapid test methods become desirable, especially if your manufacturing distribution process requires a fast turn around.  Neogen Corporation are the world’s biggest specialist company providing rapid tests not only for pathogenic and spoilage bacteria, but for many different allergens such as soy, gluten, peanut, histamine etc.  These tests range from simple to use lateral flow strips to quantitative kits with specificity down to 2 ppb.