Wm. Lachowsky et al., A COMPARISON OF THE BACTOSCAN-8000S TO 3 CULTURAL METHODS FOR ENUMERATION OF BACTERIA IN RAW-MILK, Food research international, 30(3-4), 1997, pp. 273-280
The bacteriological load of bulk tank raw milk samples was determined
using the Bactoscan (BSN) 8000S and three cultural methods: standard p
late count (SPC), spiral plate count (SPC) and plate loop count (PLC).
A total of 3640 milk samples (2918 natural and 722 spiked) were analy
zed. The repeatability of each system was assessed at critical cut-off
counts of log(10) 4.0 and log(10) 5.0. In descending order, kappa val
ues of within-system-agreement (repeatability) at log(10) 4.0 were: SP
C=0.87, SPC=0.70, BSN=0.67 and PLC=0.42. Descending kappa values at lo
g(10) 5.0 were: BSN = 0.96, SPC = 0.95, PLC = 0.84 and SPC = 0.78. BSN
results demonstrated good correlation with the three methods: SPC (r
= 0.79), PLC (r = 0.72) and SPC (r = 0.73). These results suggest that
the rapid and automated Bactoscan 8000S could provide a reasonable al
ternative to the three cultural methods for enumeration of bacteria in
bulk tank raw milk when counts fall within the instruments specified
applicable range of log(10) 4.0-log(10) 5.477. (C) 1997 Canadian Insti
tute of Food Science and Technology. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd
.