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

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