InstantLabs’ Listeria Species Food Safety Test Kit Now AOAC Certified

Hunter Accelerated Real-Time PCR system. Image courtesy of InstantLabs.

BALTIMORE - InstantLabs Medical Diagnostics Corporation (InstantLabs), developer of the portable Hunter Accelerated Real-Time PCR system, announced its Listeria Species Food Safety Kit has received AOAC Performance Tested Methods certification for environmental and food matrices.

The Hunter system is a real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) platform that provides rapid, affordable and accurate detection of pathogens. Bacteria that are members of the Listeria genus are an increasingly prevalent and dangerous concern in the food safety industry globally, InstantLabs said.

The Listeria Species Food Safety Kit has been certified for the identification of L. species in foods and environmental surfaces that are common carriers of the potentially lethal foodborne pathogen. 

“The certification from AOAC for our Listeria Species Food Safety Kit further validates the ability of the Hunter system to accurately and reliably identify foodborne pathogens at the point of need, eliminating the time wasted while samples are shipped to outside testing facilities. In addition to providing precise, affordable pathogen detection, the Hunter system’s Listeria Species Food Safety Kit can offer results in 24 hours, significantly faster than traditional methods of pathogen testing,” said Steven Guterman, CEO, InstantLabs. “Our Listeria monocytogenes Food Safety Kit has also been submitted to the AOAC for review, and we are aggressively working to bring the many advantages of point-of-need RT-PCR testing offered by the Hunter system to additional food pathogens such as Vibrio, a genus of bacteria that can be found in seafood.”