Food Safety Testing Tools

New publication alert! Continuing on our focus on food and water safety. Our latest work in the Royal Society of Chemistry #ChemComm lays out forward-looking strategies on matrix-first benchmarking of biosensing systems for food and water safety. Biosensors are pivotal for detecting foodborne and waterborne hazards due to their portability, low cost, and rapid response. However, performance often degrades in real samples, where complex matrices reduce sensitivity and specificity and increase false positives/negatives. This systematic review synthesizes recent advances in biosensor platforms for monitoring contaminants in food and water, emphasizing how matrix properties govern analytical reliability and field usability. We present a matrix-first benchmarking perspective that compares biosensor performance across low-biomass waters, high-organic wastewater, and complex food extracts (high fat/protein, high particulate load, acidic, or high-salt), and summarizes dominant interference modes (fouling, nonspecific binding, ionic-strength shifts, and optical turbidity) alongside practical mitigation workflows (dilution/filtration, cleanup extraction, antifouling coatings, and microfluidic preconcentration). Beyond bacteria and viruses, this revision integrates pesticides as a third hazard class, covering enzyme-inhibition, aptamer, immuno-, and molecularly imprinted polymer sensing strategies, with representative case studies including glyphosate/AMPA, paraquat/diquat, chlorpyrifos, and atrazine. Overall, the matrix-first framework highlights design and workflow choices most likely to translate biosensors from proof-of-concept to deployable, multi-hazard monitoring tools for food and water safety. You can read the work here! Matrix-first benchmarking of biosensors for multi-hazard monitoring: bacteria, viruses, and pesticides in food and water  https://lnkd.in/g-bgaMpF Congratulations to all authors. This effort was led by Kundan kumar Mishra and a big shout out to all our undergraduate researchers Shashwat Singh; Brandon Phan; Sri Sai Tummala; Abhinav Kokala; Sushil Kumar; Preeti Singh; and Shalini Prasad #biosensors #impact #sensors #engineering #foodsafety #watersafety #UTDallas #innovation

FROM CUSTOMER CHALLENGE TO AOAC OFFICIAL METHOD Food laboratories are under increasing pressure to measure PFAS at lower levels, across more matrices, and under evolving regulatory requirements. When our team developed this PFAS workflow, we started with a simple question: How can we help laboratories implement PFAS testing in food and feed using a workflow applicable across a broad range of matrices and validated according to established performance requirements? I am thrilled to share that this effort has now been adopted as AOAC Official Method 2025.11 (First Action) for the determination of 30 PFAS compounds across a broad range of matrices, including dairy products, eggs, meat, seafood, produce, beverages, feed, coffee, protein powder, edible offal, and fish oil. By combining QuEChERS extraction, Captiva EMR PFAS cleanup, and LC-MS/MS detection, the team developed a validated workflow that meets the requirements of AOAC SMPR 2023.003 for the determination of PFAS across diverse food and feed matrices. An AOAC First Action Official Method provides laboratories with access to an analytical workflow that has undergone AOAC's independent review process and method evaluation. Congratulations and thank you to Limian Zhao, Emily Parry, and Matthew Giardina for the tremendous effort behind this work! In addition to the Official Method, the team also published a peer-reviewed AOAC journal article describing the method and its validation. Thank you as well to Anne Mack for her support in editing the manuscripts. Most importantly, thank you to the food testing laboratories whose challenges continue to inspire and shape the solutions we develop. This milestone reflects our continued commitment to supporting food testing laboratories and the advancement of food safety testing. AOAC Official Method: https://lnkd.in/eCctZs4r JAOAC Article: https://lnkd.in/eAUk2raG Agilent Technologies AOAC INTERNATIONAL #TrustedAnswers

🦠 What if you could detect invisible food residue on a surface in just 10 seconds? That's exactly what an ATP Swab Test does. In food manufacturing, a surface may look perfectly clean—but appearances can be deceiving. Tiny traces of food residue and microorganisms can remain after cleaning and become a source of contamination. 🔬 ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) is the energy molecule found in all living cells, including bacteria, yeast, mold, and food residues. Here's how the test works: 1️⃣ A swab is rubbed over the surface to be tested. 2️⃣ The swab is inserted into a handheld luminometer. 3️⃣ ATP reacts with a special reagent and produces light. 4️⃣ The instrument measures the light output as Relative Light Units (RLU). 📊 Higher RLU = More biological residue present ✅ Rapid verification of cleaning effectiveness ✅ Results in seconds instead of days ✅ Helps identify hygiene failures before production starts ✅ Widely used in dairy, bakery, beverage, meat, and ready-to-eat food industries ⚠️ Important: ATP testing does not identify specific microorganisms. It serves as a rapid hygiene screening tool that indicates whether further investigation may be needed. In modern food processing, ATP testing has become one of the fastest ways to verify sanitation and support food safety programs. 💡 Have you ever used ATP swab testing in your facility? What RLU limits does your organization follow? #FoodSafety #FoodTechnology #ATPTest #HygieneMonitoring #QualityControl #FoodIndustry #Sanitation #FoodScience #QualityAssurance #FoodProcessing :::

🦠 Main Microbiological Tests & Procedures in Food Quality Control 🔬 Microbiological testing is one of the most important parts of food quality control because harmful microorganisms can affect food safety, shelf life, and consumer health. Here are some of the main microbiological tests performed in food laboratories and their basic procedures: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ 1️⃣ Total Plate Count (TPC) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Purpose: Measures the total number of viable microorganisms in a food sample. 🧪 Procedure: ✔ Prepare the food sample under sterile conditions ✔ Perform serial dilution ✔ Transfer diluted sample into Plate Count Agar ✔ Incubate at 35°C for 48 hours ✔ Count visible colonies using a colony counter 📌 Result: Reported as CFU/g or CFU/mL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ 2️⃣ Yeast & Mold Test ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Purpose: Detects spoilage microorganisms responsible for food deterioration. 🧪 Procedure: ✔ Prepare and dilute the sample ✔ Inoculate onto Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) ✔ Incubate at 25°C for 3–5 days ✔ Observe yeast and mold colony growth 📌 Common in: Bakery products, beverages, spices, sauces ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ 3️⃣ Coliform Test ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Purpose: Indicates sanitation quality and possible contamination. 🧪 Procedure: ✔ Prepare diluted sample ✔ Inoculate onto MacConkey Agar or VRBA media ✔ Incubate at 37°C for 24 hours ✔ Count characteristic coliform colonies 📌 Importance: Used to evaluate hygiene during food processing. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ 4️⃣ E. coli Detection ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Purpose: Detects possible fecal contamination in food. 🧪 Procedure: ✔ Enrich the sample in selective broth ✔ Streak onto selective agar media ✔ Incubate under controlled conditions ✔ Confirm suspected colonies through biochemical tests 📌 Importance: A critical food safety indicator organism. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✅ 5️⃣ Salmonella Detection ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 Purpose: Detects Salmonella species that can cause serious foodborne illness. 🧪 Procedure: ✔ Pre-enrichment in Buffered Peptone Water ✔ Selective enrichment in special broth ✔ Streak onto XLD or selective agar ✔ Incubate and observe colony characteristics ✔ Confirm using biochemical or serological tests 📌 Importance: One of the most important pathogen tests in food safety. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚙️ Common Equipment Used ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔬 Autoclave 🔬 Incubator 🔬 Laminar Air Flow Cabinet 🔬 Colony Counter 🔬 Petri Dishes 🔬 Micropipettes Microbiological testing helps ensure food safety, maintain product quality, and protect consumer health every day. 🛡️ #Microbiology #FoodSafety #QualityControl #FoodIndustry #FoodTesting #Laboratory #QC #FoodQuality #MicrobiologyLab

🔬 Our latest research (Q1, IF=7.6, FREE DOWNLOAD) explores intelligent mobile diagnostic platforms (IMDPs) for rapid and reliable food safety control. This comprehensive review summarizes the functions, classifications, and applications of IMDPs, highlighting how portable sensing platforms integrated with lab-on-a-chip technologies, stretchable materials, smart devices, and machine learning algorithms can significantly enhance detection accuracy and reliability. We systematically discuss paper-based, chip-based, hydrogel-based, and wearable IMDPs, demonstrating their potential for on-site monitoring of food freshness, contaminants, and pathogens, particularly in resource-limited settings. The work underscores IMDPs as a cost-effective, portable, and scalable solution for next-generation food safety monitoring. Y. Jin, J. Ma, Y. Lin, J.-H. Cheng, Da-Wen Sun*, Intelligent Mobile Diagnostic Platforms for Food Safety Control: Functions, Classifications and Applications, Food Engineering Reviews, 17, 1036–1058 (2025). https://lnkd.in/gcVQ-t3y #DaWenSun #FoodSafety #MobileDiagnostics #SmartSensing #LabOnAChip #MachineLearning #FoodEngineering #RapidDetection #OpenAccess

Swab testing is a critical process in the food industry to ensure hygiene, sanitation, and food safety compliance. It involves collecting samples from surfaces, equipment, or hands to detect contamination or microbial presence. Here's an overview: Types of Swab Testing: 1. Hygiene Monitoring Swabs - Detect residues (protein, ATP, etc.) on surfaces after cleaning. - Common tools: ATP bioluminescence tests. 2. Microbial Testing Swabs - Detect specific microorganisms like bacteria (e.g., Salmonella, Listeria, E. coli), yeasts, and molds. - Culture-based methods or rapid molecular tests are used. Key Steps in Swab Testing: 1. Preparation - Use sterile swabs and follow aseptic techniques to avoid cross-contamination. - Select appropriate swabs (e.g., dry, pre-moistened with buffer or neutralizer). 2. Sampling - Identify critical areas such as food-contact surfaces, drains, utensils, and high-touch zones. - Swab a defined surface area (e.g., 10x10 cm) systematically (usually a zig-zag pattern). 3. Analysis - Transfer the swab to a culture medium, test kit, or laboratory for further examination. - Monitor for microbial growth or immediate results using rapid test kits. 4. Documentation - Record results to assess cleanliness and identify trends or recurring issues. Applications in the Food Industry: - Verification of Cleaning Practices Ensures sanitation protocols effectively remove contaminants. - Monitoring Pathogens Prevents foodborne illnesses by identifying harmful microbes early. - HACCP Compliance Helps meet critical control point standards in food safety management. - Regulatory and Certification Requirements Supports compliance with FSMS standards like ISO 22000 or BRCGS. Best Practices: - Use pre-moistened swabs with neutralizing buffers to capture a wide range of residues. - Test both food-contact and non-food-contact surfaces. - Incorporate a regular swabbing schedule into cleaning SOPs. - Train staff on proper swabbing techniques. - Investigate and act on positive results to address contamination sources. #swab #testing #food #foodsafety #quality #hygiene #haccp #iso