Quality control of culture media - perspectives and problems

The Working Party on Culture Media (WPCM) of the International Union of Mic robiological Societies (IUMS) has promoted and facilitated the development of methods for quality control of culture media used for the detection and enumeration of food-borne microorganisms since the early 1980s. While progr ess has been made in establishing protocols to test for productivity and se lectivity of media, problems associated with the influence of food constitu ents and background microflora, as well as the presence of sublethally inju red cells in test foods, are yet to be fully addressed before optimum metho ds for assessing the quality of media can be defined. However, for various reasons, the development of standardised procedures which account for the i nfluence of food constituents or state of debilitation of target microorgan isms may not be practical or even desirable. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.