Speed and Accuracy for Food Safety： Boost Lab Performance with Ready-to-Use Media and Automated Colony Analysis

In today's food safety laboratories, efficiency and accuracy are critical, not only to meet regulatory standards but also to prevent costly foodborne illness outbreaks. This webinar introduces practical solutions to reduce media preparation time, minimize human error, and accelerate colony counting in microbiological testing. Whether you work in a food manufacturing QA/QC lab, a third-party testing lab, or a government inspection agency, this session will provide concrete strategies to streamline microbial testing without compromising reliability.

Introduction Summary

Contamination from bacteria, yeasts, and molds remains a leading cause of food product recalls and public health issues. Yet, many labs continue to use outdated or manual testing methods that are slow, labor-intensive, and prone to inconsistency.

This webinar introduces two key innovations:

• Easy Plate: A compact, pre-prepared media plate that eliminates the need for media prep and reduces incubation time
• Automated Colony Counters: AI-driven tools that enable accurate, consistent, and user-independent colony counting

Combined, these tools increase throughput, reduce workload, and help laboratories meet today’s demanding testing schedules with greater efficiency.

Key Topics

The Risk of Microbial Contamination 

Microorganisms in the production environment pose ongoing threats to consumer safety and brand reputation. Traditional agar plates require extensive prep work-media pouring, sterilization, incubation, and post-use autoclaving - which consume valuable time, space, and energy. 

Easy Plate for Simplified Testing

• No media preparation or sterilization needed 
• Incubation completed in just 24-48 hours (depending on sample type)
• Uses 1/20th the volume of a traditional petri dish 
• Minimal storage and waste; compact space is required to store and dispose of items of using the autoclave.

Environmentally Friendly Packaging 

Easy Plate is now packaged in a transparent barrier film instead of traditional aluminum bags. The switch reduces CO2 emissions and power consumption, supporting sustainability goals. 

Challenges in Reading Results- Solved with Automation

Colony appearance varies by media type, making interpretation difficult for non-experts. Automated colony counters, powered by AI, standardize and accelerate analysis, eliminating user bias and reducing interpretation time.

IAFP European Symposium 2025 – Technical Session 9

T9: Evaluation of Easy Plate YM-R™ for Enumerating Yeasts and Molds in Both High and Low Water Activity Foods

Introduction

Kikkoman Biochemifa Company will be presenting new validation data for Easy Plate YM-R™, a ready-to-use (RTU) culture medium developed for the rapid enumeration of yeasts and molds. The product enables results in 48 to 72 hours and is suitable for both high and low water activity foods. This presentation will take place as part of Technical Session 9 (T9) at the IAFP European Symposium 2025.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of Easy Plate YM-R™ in alignment with AOAC Performance Tested Methods℠, MicroVal, and NordVal certification requirements, with particular focus on applied statistical methods for method validation.

Study Overview

Methodology:

Easy Plate YM-R™ was compared against ISO 21527-1/2 (2008) and BAM Chapter 18 (2001). Validation was conducted across diverse product categories including:

• Dairy
• Fruits and produce
• Multicomponent foods
• Bakery items
• Meat and poultry
• Dried foods
• Confectionery
• Pet foods
• Environmental swabs

Parameters assessed include:

• Relative trueness: 135 items using Bland-Altman plots
• Repeatability and accuracy: β-ETIs and confidence intervals (19 items)
• Selectivity: 50 inclusivity strains, 30 exclusivity strains Robustness, consistency, and stability: via ANOVA

Key Findings

• At 48 hours, Easy Plate YM-R™ demonstrated agreement with reference methods in three categories: produce, multicomponent foods, and environmental samples
• At 72 hours, consistent agreement was achieved across all tested food types, within ±0.5 log or recalculated acceptance limits
• Selectivity surpassed reference methods, with the medium supporting growth of all tested xerophilic and non-xerophilic inclusivity strains, and inhibiting all exclusivity strains
• Robustness testing indicated the importance of maintaining correct incubation temperature
• Consistency and long-term product stability were also confirmed

Conclusion

Easy Plate YM-R™ is a robust and time-saving alternative to traditional yeast and mold testing methods. It offers a simplified workflow, wide applicability across food matrices, and strong statistical validation. The method is especially valuable for manufacturers managing both high and low water activity products.

Presenters

• Shinichiro Sugiura – Primary Author and Presenter, Kikkoman Biochemifa Company
• Daiki Utsunomiya – Kikkoman Biochemifa Company
• Alice Foxall – Campden BRI
• Suzanne Jordan – Campden BRI

We welcome IAFP EU 2025 attendees to join Technical Session 9 (T9) to learn more about the validation and application of Easy Plate YM-R™ in microbiological testing. For additional information or to request a meeting during the event, please contact us through our [inquiry form] or speak with your local representative.

IAFP European Symposium 2025 – Poster Session P1-69

Evaluation of Accuracy and Efficiency for Novel Automatic Colony Counting System for Ready-to-Use Culture Media, Easy Plate™

Introduction

Ready-to-use (RTU) culture media improves food safety testing by offering quicker preparation, compact form, easy handling, and clearer visibility of colonies compared to traditional agar media. However, manual colony counting remains labor-intensive and requires trained personnel. To enhance efficiency, an automated colony counting solution is necessary.

Purpose

This study aimed to evaluate the rapidity and accuracy of a new Colony Counting System (CCS) developed for Easy Plate™ (Kikkoman Biochemifa Company). The CCS uses a general document scanner with an automatic feeder and dedicated analysis software based on object detection through machine learning.

Method

Ten types of food samples were diluted and plated on Easy Plate media for Aerobic Count (AC) and Coliform Count (CC) testing. Three levels of contamination were prepared, and results from the CCS were compared with conventional manual counting in terms of processing time and colony count accuracy.

Results

The CCS processed each sheet in approximately 5.0 to 6.4 seconds, regardless of bacterial load. In contrast, manual counting took between 13.8 and 44.5 seconds per sheet, especially longer at lower contamination levels (10–50 CFU/sheet). The correlation coefficient between the CCS and manual counting was over 0.98 for both AC and CC tests. These findings indicate that the CCS can reduce counting time by approximately 77% without compromising accuracy.

Significance

Combining ready-to-use culture media with an automated counting system provides an efficient, accurate, and cost-saving approach to microbiological testing. This innovation is particularly valuable for high-throughput environments in food safety laboratories.

Presenters

• Shinichiro Sugiura, Primary Author, Kikkoman Biochemifa Company
• Kentaro Takenaka, Abstract Presenter, Kikkoman Corporation