Page 46 - FoodFocusThailand No.179 February 2021
P. 46
STRONG QC & QA
Rapid Microbial Detection
for Hygiene Monitoring
in Food Processing
Hygiene monitoring in the food and drink
manufacturers is a verification of the efficacy
of a cleaning and sanitation program or
overall cleanliness of the plant to ensure
food hygiene, the safety and suitability of
food for consumption.
Cleaning should remove food debris and contaminants
from a previous production run and sanitize equipment to
reduce the microorganisms to the satisfactory level prior to
starting the next run. To verify the efficacy of cleaning and
sanitation, hygiene monitoring by visual inspection is quick
but ineffective. ATP bioluminescence detection is a popular
rapid technique. It measures the adenosine triphosphate
which is an energy source of living cells; therefore, it can
refer to microorganisms and food residues on the surfaces
after cleaning and sanitation. ATP testing provides results
in minutes; thus, it can help identify niche sites where
ineffective cleaning and sanitation need to be corrected.
However, ATP technique can only be used as an indicator
of cleanliness as it lacks specificity. Hygiene monitoring by
detecting specific microorganisms is necessary to allow
manufacturers to prevent and control food safety risks during
production. Rapid microbial detections for hygiene
monitoring can be divided into two groups basis on the
principle of detection, including culture-based quantification
assay and rapid indicator-testing for biomarker (Falowska,
2018; Sogin et al., 2020)
1. Rapid Methods Basis on Culture-based
Quantification Assay
1.1 Optical Assay
It is a detection of either colour or fluorescence
(expressed as light intensity units) changes in a broth
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