Salmonella Detection Kit Assists Efforts to Protect Food Supply

Applied Biosystems has announced the certification of its TaqMan® Salmonella enterica Detection Kit for the identification of Salmonella in peanut butter through the new Emergency Response Validation programme of the AOAC Research Institute, one of the world’s leading food industry standards organisations.

Validation of the Applied Biosystems kit is part of an effort to effectively respond to the recent peanut butter contamination crisis, which resulted in the largest food recall in US history. The TaqMan Salmonella enterica Detection Kit is a molecular-based tool for monitoring the safety of food supplies, and could help avoid costly recalls of food products in the future.

The new Emergency Response Validation programme is intended to enhance the ability of government and industry to test food supplies for Salmonella, which has been implicated in several recent outbreaks, including peppers, sprouts and tomatoes. The outbreak in peanut butter sickened hundreds of people, and has been implicated in at least nine deaths. As part of this programme, the AOAC is extending validation of several methods, previously certified for the identification of Salmonella in various foods, to include detection in peanut butter. This supports food companies’ increasing measures to prevent contaminated foods from reaching consumers.

The TaqMan Salmonella enterica Detection Kit was introduced into the food safety testing market with AOAC Performance Tested Methodssm certification in 2008, as part of Applied Biosystems’ initiative to serve a broader range of customers.

It is a real-time PCR-based method that identifies pathogens by detecting their DNA in food samples, allowing food companies and regulators to quickly and accurately detect contamination.