Application of Luminescent ATP Rapid Checks at Ready-to-eat Foods Producing Plant

Food processing companies ensure quality and safety of their products following Good Hygienic Practice and implementing the HACCP protocol. European legislation indicates aerobic plate count and other microbiological assay as valid procedures for monitoring sanitation procedures effectiveness and microbial contamination levels. Nevertheless, unspecific but rapid methods like the ATP assay are very useful to reduce costs and response time. Bioluminescent ATP determination has been applied at a ready-to-eat meals producer plant as a screening tool to evaluate the cleaning procedures and identify possible sources of microbial contamination. Luminescent ATP test revealed the risk situations in few minutes, any time it was supposed useful, and on site. All data were confirmed by plate count method and immediate interventions on risk situations, concerning not perfectly cleaned surfaces and cross-contamination among areas for different types of foods, were taken. Their effectiveness was confirmed by repeated controls by portable ATP assay, since the evaluation of the relationship between CFU and RLU gave good results, with an r2 value of 0.83.