LuminUltra and Kikkoman Partner to Bring Food Safety Testing to North America

FREDERICTON, New Brunswick – LuminUltra, a global biotechnology company, has entered into a partnership with Kikkoman Biochemifa to expand access to its food safety and hygiene monitoring tools across North America. Through this agreement, LuminUltra becomes an official distributor of Kikkoman's food safety testing solutions. 

LuminUltra will now add the ability to support food safety and hygiene programs through two of Kikkoman's flagship tools:

• The A3 Hygiene Monitoring System detects ATP, ADP and AMP, providing a more complete picture of surface cleanliness than traditional ATP-only tests, said LuminUltra. With a more thorough picture in the same amount of time as traditional ATP, food safety teams get more data to ensure they've sanitized their production space thoroughly, and the insights to take more action if they haven't, said the company. This is especially relevant to sectors including ready-to-eat, dairy and meat products, where the impact of improper sanitization is highest, LuminUltra said.
• Easy Plate, a ready-to-use, self-contained culture-based solution for detecting pathogens and indicator organisms that cut prep time in half by eliminating the need for media prep or spreader step. Users get testing that is simpler, faster and more accessible, with no special equipment required, unlike traditional plating solutions, said the company. When combined with the Colony Counting System for Easy Plate, labs further boost performance by eliminating the variability and time burden of manual counting, said LuminUltra.

"These solutions have been trusted by food producers and distributors across Asia and Europe for decades, but they are underutilized here in North America," said Pat Whalen, president and CEO of LuminUltra. "This is about accelerating access to more accurate and sensitive testing for the North American food and beverage market. Producers want better and more proactive insights but haven't had the access to or awareness of the right solutions. We've built our business on educating industries on why a better test matters, and we're bringing that expertise to rolling out this game-changing tools for the food and beverage industry."

An Aligned Partnership for Growth

LuminUltra and Kikkoman have built a working relationship over the past 30 years, collaborating on innovation and product development and united through a shared common belief that better microbial monitoring tools lead to better insights, and ultimately, better outcomes, said LuminUltra. 

This expanded partnership marks a significant evolution of that relationship, formalizing a commitment to bring full-service, proven food safety technologies to more producers across North America, said the company. It also reflects LuminUltra's strategic focus on expanding its support to the food and beverage market, where proper microbiological management is mission critical but product supply and innovation has been limited, said LuminUltra. 

"LuminUltra brings the kind of deep technical focus and customer-first mindset we value in a partner," said Yoshiaki Asami, president of the Kikkoman Biochemifa Company. "As a food manufacturer ourselves, we understand the real-world needs and challenges that QA/QC teams face every day. We have seen first-hand how valuable and important these tools are to other geographic markets across Asia and Europe. With today's announcement, we're proud to be expanding the reach of these solutions into North America and to be supporting a stronger, safer food system globally."

Learn more or connect with the LuminUltra team at luminultra.com/food.