The optical detection of bacterial counts in raw meat with the MicroFoss system

Microbial process and product control in food producing plants are importan t compounds of self control and quality assuring measures. Pitfalls are tim e, labour and cost intensiveness of these analyses. The optical method "Mic roFoss 32 System" of FOSS ELECTRIC (Denmark) allows the estimation of bacte rial counts within few hours and is widely automated. The principle is that microbial metabolism leads to changes in light transmission through liquid nutrient or selective media. According to literature and own results this system shows high correlations with the conventional method (r > -0.9) for total viable aerobic count, coliforms and E. coli. Furthermore, results are clarified by the traffic light system which allows reading by untrained pe rsonnel.