Food Quality & Safety New Products: August/September 2018

Environmental Monitoring Technology

Listeria PatternAlert assay rapidly identifies molecular patterns from Listeria strains to assist food producers in identifying harborage sites for persistent Listeria and in tracing back sources of contamination. The assay, which is performed using the fully automated Encompass Optimum workstation, enables users to detect molecular patterns in just six hours directly from a positive enriched sample, without the need for an isolate. Each result can be matched against a user’s specific PatternAlert database to identify their pattern matches across locations and time. Each pattern generated by the assay encompasses a group of strains and may include multiple species of Listeria. Rheonix, 607-257-1242, www.rheonix.com.

NGS-Based Platform for Pathogen Testing

Clear Safety is an end-to-end NGS-based food safety platform for high-volume routine pathogen testing. According to the company, by combining NGS sequencing, advanced microbiology, robotic automation, data science, and software analytics, a 99.9% accuracy can be achieved while lowering costs. The platform collects hundreds of millions of data points per analysis to learn everything about a pathogen in a single test. The first release of the platform supports high-volume Salmonella testing. Listeria and E. coli testing will be rolled out in 2019. All tests go from sample to answer in under 24 hours. Clear Labs, 650-257-3304, www.clearlabs.com.

Desktop Color Label Printer

With print speed up to 4.5 in. per second, the LX910 can handle labels as wide as 8 in. and as small as 0.75 in. According to the company, banding is virtually eliminated—even on the faster print speeds. Both dye-based ink and pigment ink work interchangeably on the same printer, while a new print head is provided each time the cartridge is changed. Typical applications include product labels for coffee, wine, water, bakery, confectionary, meat, cheese, and other specialty and gourmet foods. The printer is also ideal for manufacturing, laboratory, government, retail, and a wide variety of other markets. Primera Technology, Inc., 800-797-2772, www.primera.com.

Monitoring Perishable Shipments

The GO Real-Time Reusable Tracker, a new version of the GO Real-Time Tracker, allows users to recharge and reuse the device. It provides visibility of location and temperature of perishable shipments in real time, via a cellular connection. It’s suitable for use in scenarios where customers own their own trucks and/or control both the start and end point of a shipment. Emerson, 314-553-2000, www.emerson.com.

Wine pH Tester

The Wine pH tester (HI981033) is engineered to solve the challenge of measuring samples with a higher solids content. The ideal pH tester for wine making, this tester is crafted to measure the pH in juice, must, and wine. The company says the probe features Clogging Prevention System sleeve junction technology that resists clogging up to 20x longer than a standard ceramic frit. A spherical glass tip design allows the probe to come in direct contact with a wider area of the wine sample for a faster pH measurement. Equipped with a glass body, the electrode is easy to clean and chemically resistant. The glass body is also able to quickly reach a thermal equilibrium. Hanna Instruments, Inc., 800-426-6287, https://hannainst.com.

Rapid Molecular Fingerprinting

The DART QDa System with LiveID is a direct-from-sample analytical system that allows laboratories to answer questions such as: Is the sample authentic? Has the composition of the sample changed? Is the sample quality good or bad? Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) is a direct and rapid analysis technique for various sample types with minimal sample preparation and no requirement for a chromatographic separation. The source directs heated, ionized gas at the surface of the sample between the DART interface and the QDa detector where the ionized molecules are detected. The LiveID software provides the user with the capability to train and validate multivariate statistical models using the chemical profile obtained from the DART QDa analysis. The LiveID models can be used to classify the identity of unknown samples, generating results in near real time and a simple yes/no answer in seconds. Waters Corp., 800-252-4752, www.waters.com.