Any situation in which contaminated foods enter the distribution chain is likely to be expensive to the food industry. Even when no person actually consumes the contaminated product, and when no illness has occurred, the suspect product will need to be recalled. In addition to the direct cost of the recall and losses due to not having a saleable product, an important component of the total cost can be a long-lasting reduction in brand confidence.

This is part of a dilemma faced by manufacturers, because in many cases they have no other option than to release products provisionally while awaiting the results of routine diagnostic tests. For an important microbiological contaminant such as , Salmonella the existing most rapid screening methods require 1 to 2 days to perform. In some cases, valuable time can be lost due to the need to send the samples to a specialist laboratory. Holding on to the product on site for such a long period adds significantly to material and storage costs and reduces the product's shelf life.

The new MAGDA™ CA testing system soon to be available from Raisio Diagnostics drastically reduces the time requirement while ensuring that the highest performance criteria are met. It is ideal for Salmonella testing, providing actionable results in only 8 hours.

Actionable results for Salmonella in 8 hours
The MAGDA™ CA Salmonella method starts with an enhanced one-step enrichment, in which carefully optimized growth conditions involving shaking, temperature control and MAGDA proprietary supplement enhance the Salmonella growth, and reduces the enrichment time requirement to only 6 hours.

Magnetic beads coated with a Salmonella-specific antibody are added to samples of the enrichment culture. Large sample volumes of 10 ml are used to maximize sensitivity. After a short reaction time, bead-Salmonella complexes are simply lifted directly out of the liquid with a PickPen® device. The same magnetic handling process also makes it easy to wash and recollect the magnetic beads.

The MAGDA™ CA thermal cycler reduces the nucleic acid amplification reaction stage to less than 1 h. All the user has to do is to deposit a suspension of the bead-Salmonella complexes onto a DNA chip. No DNA extraction is needed, and all the needed reagents are already on the chip in dry form. The sample chip is loaded into the thermal cycler, which automatically switches it between the thermal blocks.

Following the repeated cycles of denaturation, annealing and extension, the measurement takes place in the instrument. Results are displayed as either positive or negative. The data can also be stored and printed or forwarded to a laboratory information system.

As well as being extremely fast, the Raisio MAGDA™ CA Salmonella test is characterized by simplicity and user-friendliness at every step, and specific expertise in molecular methods is not required. It is therefore suitable for use at virtually any food laboratory wishing to benefit from true same day release of tested products.

The MAGDA™ CA Salmonella establishes new frontiers in productivity, results quality, improved efficiency and laboratory safety.

An article about MAGDA™ CA Salmonella is recently published in the magazine International Food Hygiene, Vol.18. No. 2.

MAGDA is a trademark of Raisio Diagnostics, and PickPen® is a registered trademark of Bio-Nobile