Colony counter excludes food debris

Synbiosis has added features to its Protocol automated colony counter, to exclude food debris from the count.

This makes counting faster and more reliable, ensuring microbiologists can easily determine the levels of bacteria or moulds in food earlier, thus avoiding costly product recalls.

The Protocol software can simultaneously analyse images of the same or several different coloured colonies on spiral-, pour- or surface-inoculated plates, and has different levels of user access to provide lab managers with control of the system.

The software has been upgraded so microbiologists can train Protocol to automatically recognise by colour and shape colonies they would expect to see, while excluding fibrous food debris such as meat or fish from the count.

This helps reduce manual analysis and means results are quickly obtained.

Results from the Protocol system are highly reproducible and can be automatically transferred into Excel, where a sample name can be entered into the database, thereby reducing the operator variation that can occur from different microbiologists' manual colony counts.

An image library is also created alongside the Excel database, making it easy to produce evidence for each food tested and allowing lab managers the option to revisit a plate if there is any query after its disposal.

The Protocol software is GLP-compliant and tracks any changes to results, making Protocol suitable for use as part of an HACCP programme.

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