Romer Labs Listeria test receives AOAC extension
Performance-Tested Methods (PTM) certification was received from the AOAC for the RapidChek Listeria NextDay system.
The system, which already had environmental backing, has been re-named from RapidChek Listeria F.A.S.T. to RapidChek Listeria NextDay to reflect the faster time to result.
According to the USDA Food Safety Inspection Service’s (USDA-FSIS) some recalls could have been prevented if industry routinely followed the “test and hold” practice.
With “test and hold” now in place, processors are moving from traditional 40-48 hour Listeriamethods to faster, one-day rapid methods due to storage and spoilage costs.
Romer Labs said the test helps producers meet the requirements by reducing time to result for certain environmental and food samples from 48 to 24-27 hours.
Test and hold importance
Tim Lawruk, senior director of marketing at Romer Labs, said “test and hold" is a requirement that food products are not shipped until the relevant microbiological testing is complete and meets specifications (i.e. no pathogens detected.)
“Previously many food producers would release product to the consumer prior to receiving this data and had to retroactively recall the product. This led to foodborne illness in many cases if the food could not be recalled in time,” he told FoodQualityNews.com.
“Companies implementing test and hold then have to be concerned by storage and shelf life of the food product so it is important that any testing method provides the fastest time to result possible.”
The AOAC PTM certification provides third party verification of product claims from the test developers.
Most food producers will not use or even evaluate a test method until it has this certification, said Romer Labs.
The extension validates it as equivalent to the USDA-FSIS’s 48-hour methodology for detecting all six Listeriaspecies on food samples, including hot dogs, roast beef, frozen breaded chicken and meatballs and equivalent to the FDA BAM 48-hour methodology for various dairy products.
Faster test method
Lawruk said the reduction in time to result is primarily driven by productivity of the RapidChek Listeria NextDay media.
“The purpose of any food pathogen test kit is to detect a single viable cell in the test sample,” he
said.
“To accomplish this, the food/environmental sample must be added to enrichment media to facilitate the target pathogens' growth to a detectable concentration that the detection method, in this case a lateral flow test strip, can detect.
“The RapidChek NextDay media provides nutrients and other compounds to effectively grow Listeria to these detection levels in 24-27 hours. Most generic cultural media and traditional microbiological methods require 48 hours to reach these detectable levels.”
RapidChek ListeriaNextDay received AOAC PTM certification for monitoring environmental surfaces in 2011, including stainless steel, rubber, plastic and concrete under the RapidChek Listeria F.A.S.T. name.
Lawruk said the product was rebranded to better describe the time-to-result of the test kit.
“FAST was too generic and was used by many other products in the market. We wanted RapidChek NextDay to stand-out because it is one of the most accurate, easy to use and most importantly cost-effective test kits available.”
