Illuminating results

Standard environmental monitoring of Listeria monocytogenes in food factories is time consuming and requires specialised personnel and equipped microbiology laboratories. Alternative rapid detection methods are increasingly used, reducing time to results to, at best, 48 hours compared to five days using the full ISO 11290 method. However, the majority of these rapid methods still require specialised personnel and safety level 2 laboratories. The ones that do not rely on such sophisticated infrastructures are mainly based on chromogenic liquid media that give results after 48 hours via colour change. But due to limited sensitivity and specificity, these chromogenic alternatives have severe drawbacks compared to current laboratory methods.

NEMIS Technologies has recently commercialised a reliable, safe and rapid alternative. The innovative and AOAC-certified¹ N-Light^TM series is a novel patented approach based on the AquaSpark^TM technology.

Objective

This article highlights the key technical differences between the N-Light^TM L. monocytogenes test and on-site chromogenic tests. This comparative study was conducted partly by an independent laboratory in France and partly during a pilot trial in a food factory in Switzerland.