Welcome to Part 2 of our three-part series on the use of rapid microbiological methods (RMM) in food safety testing. Part 1 can be read here.¹ In this segment, we present a follow-up to what we learned from our survey of more than 250 food processors from around the world, conducted late last year.

As we mentioned in Part 1,¹ there has been substantial growth in the development and use of rapid methods since their introduction to the market over the past 25 years or so. When these methods were first introduced, they were originally intended for use by food processors in their in-house laboratories. Over the past decade, however, fewer and fewer food companies have continued to maintain an in-house microbiology lab, mainly due to the concern for cross-contamination when working with pathogen samples. As revealed in Part 1,¹ 78 percent of the companies in our survey reported that they no longer have an in-house microbiology lab.