• the cost per test is high;
• the process is labor intensive (many times requiring significant set-up, monitoring and counting), and,
• the process is episodic and slow, with results generally not available for two to five days.

Among these undesirable attributes, the consequences of waiting for results are generally the most significant, and include costly planned and unplanned halts in production, as well as continued production under incorrectly assumed to be acceptable conditions and finding out later that, in fact, the conditions were not within regulatory or internal requirements.  This can then result in product being thrown out, as well as make it required that expensive and time-consuming investigations be conducted.

BioVigilant™ makes two classes of devices: IPD (Instantaneous Particle Detector) and IMD (Instantaneous Microbial Detector).  Both devices can be used within food processing when the following conditions exist:

• There is a desire to know the level of microbial contamination.  (Generally, this occurs in places where culturing or “rapid methods” are now employed, such as when there is no final “kill step”.)
• There is value in knowing the results instantaneously, as opposed to waiting, in the best case, for several hours, or more commonly, for several days.

Additional IMD advantages include that there is very little preparation or human intervention required, and IMD can monitor continuously, as opposed to existing methods where tests are performed episodically.

BioVigilant’s IPD and IMD devices can be used in food processing clean rooms in the following ways:

(I) As Warning Devices

BioVigilant’s detectors can sample the air continuously or do spot checks and give an indication or alarm when microbes are detected.

(II) As Continuous Monitoring and Trending Devices

The ability of BioVigilant’s IMD devices to provide instantaneous microbial detection also enables them to provide continuous monitoring and trending, which is useful functionality not possible using existing, conventional methods.

In many food processing processes, it is advantageous to be able to observe trending patterns of microbial and particulate distribution so that a microbial incursion can be detected and action taken as soon as possible. BioVigilant’s IMD devices are able to obtain the trending from analyses of a continuous stream of data, and thereby spot anomalies.

(III) To Verify If Remediation Was Successful

Finally, BioVigilant’s IMD devices can be used to obtain immediate results, for example, after remediation of microbial contamination has taken place, to determine, on a real-time basis, if the remediation was successful.

For more detailed information on how BioVigilant’s Instantaneous Microbial Detection devices can be used for food processing, please read the whitepaper, or contact BioVigilant at (520) 292-2342 or Info@BioVigilant.com.