Purpose: The aim was to evaluate the performances of ESIA One Day™ versus the reference method for the detection of Cronobacter spp in infant food products and production environmental samples.
Methods: The comparative study was performed by comparison to the reference method ISO/TS 22964:2006 and following the protocol EN ISO 16140:2003 in infant formulas, milk powders and dehydrated complements of infant formulae, matrices used in infant formulae and soy milk, environmental samples from milk industries. The protocol of alternative method is an enrichment in buffered peptone water supplemented with vancomycin. Thirty gram samples were diluted to one-tenth and 300 g samples to quarter. After an incubation time of 18 ± 2 h at 37 ± 1°C, enriched broth was isolated on ESIA™ medium. Plates were incubated 21 h at 44 ± 1°C. Typical colonies (blue) were confirmed directly by conducting Fast Crono Confirmation test, by inoculating ID 32E gallery or by Rapid ID 32E.
Results: The study proved that there were no significant difference between ESIA One Day™ method and ISO/TS:22924 standard. Sensitivity and specificity of the alternative method is equivalent to the reference method. Moreover, the shorter confirmation protocol could give a result in 5 min.
Significance: ESIA One Day™ method, validated following the protocol EN ISO 16140:2003, is easy to implement in a routine laboratory workflow and will help the end-user by improving the time to results.