THE APPLICATION of ATP BIOLUMINESCENCE FOR the ASSESSMENT of MILK QUALITY and FACTORY HYGIENE

Abstract

The speed of ATP bioluminescence assays makes them very useful for assessing product quality and efficiency of sanitation at food plants. the suitability of a new method for evaluating the quality of raw milk was compared with plate count. A good correlation was obtained between the ATP method and plate count for milks with counts above 1 × 10 4 cfu/ml. the combination of ATP bioluminescence with preincubation procedures was investigated for predicting the shelf‐life of pasteurized milk. the best correlations were obtained when milks were preincubated at 15C for 25 h or at 21C for 25 h in the presence of an inhibitor system to prevent Gram‐positive bacterial growth. Hygiene monitoring using bioluminescence gave a better indication of surface cleaniness than conventional swab counts. the reasons for the discrepancies in a small percentage of cases are discussed.