Designed for food microbiology testing, UV-BioTAG control cultures visibly fluoresce under ultraviolet (UV) light, making them easily distinguishable from naturally occurring microflora and true contamination.
Food manufacturers and processors are routinely testing samples to detect the presence of harmful pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella enterica before products are distributed for consumption. Laboratories use positive control cultures in their Quality Control (QC) programs to ensure their test methods, materials and procedures are consistently producing accurate results.
In some cases, food samples may inadvertently become cross-contaminated with the laboratory’s QC cultures during processing, leading to false-positive test results. If colonies are recovered from a food sample and they do not fluoresce under UV light, cross-contamination from UV-BioTAG control strains can be instantly ruled out as the cause.
