3M Food Safety launches AI technology to automate rapid colony-counting

20 Jan 2021 --- 3M Food Safety has unveiled the 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced to save lab testing time and increase productivity. The automation technology for food safety professionals can rapidly and accurately visualize, count and document microbiological colonies on 3M Petrifilm Plates indicator tests, notes the company.

By rapidly automating the colony-counting step, time to enumerate 3M Petrifilm Plates can be reduced up to 94 percent.

The new 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced is a small, peripheral device containing a five-megapixel camera and versatile barcode reader. 

3M Petrifilm Plates are inserted into the device, with imaging and information automatically displaying on a USB-connected computer in four to six seconds, processing up to 900 plates per hour. 

“Food safety is always a top concern globally, but challenges related to COVID-19 have put additional pressure on organizations to maximize resources,” says Elliott Zell, 3M Food Safety global new product marketing manager. 

“We have invested in advanced hardware and software to help labs reduce tedious tasks in favor of strategic activities. The 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced uses automation to help increase throughput in testing labs.” 

The 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced can process up to 900 plates per hour.Leveraging AI
The 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced can improve laboratory efficiency with fixed artificial intelligence (AI) networks to enumerate 3M Petrifilm Plates.

The technology provides accurate colony counting with proactive, easy-to-use software that simplifies results storage and data analytics, plus produces automated data and reports. 

The device can enumerate ten 3M Petrifilm Plates and the Staph Express Disk and includes software that allows technicians to edit results and add other relevant sample information. 

Following up on food safety
This introduction of the 3M Petrifilm Plate Reader Advanced is 3M Food Safety’s second automation offering within the last two years for F&B manufacturers looking to streamline their operations and modernize their laboratories. 

In 2019, 3M partnered with Hamilton Company to offer food testing laboratories interoperability between the Hamilton foodInspect NIMBUS automated multichannel pipetting technology and the 3M Molecular Detection System.

Industry and its partners continue to make strides in more efficient food safety technology. 

Last November, researchers at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore developed an “e-nose,” which uses AI to indicate the freshness of meat in real-time. 

Edited by Missy Green

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