DENVER – Food safety scientists are looking for faster ways to detect salmonella, E. coli, listeria and other pathogens within hours or minutes instead of days.
The goal is to catch contaminated food before it leaves a processing facility, thereby averting costly recalls. It also could mean a longer shelf life for products, if companies don't have to wait as long for tests to show that food is safe before shipping it.
"Traditional salmonella tests can take five days," said Azlin Mustapha, an associate professor of food science at the University of Missouri. "Companies don't have that time to wait."
In December, Agilent Technologies Inc. said it was working with the University of California, Davis on getting results from food safety tests within hours instead of days. And DuPont has worked with U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers on a test that offers results on E. coli within as little as eight hours.
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