To enhance detection methods for hepatitis A and Norovirus in fresh and frozen produce, scientists at the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods, Université Laval in Quebec, and BioMérieux in Grenoble, France, used the Concentrating Pipette method. They compared this method to the ISO 15216-1:2017 reference method for food safety testing.
The study involved contaminating 25 g samples of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, lettuce, and green onions with HAV, HuNoV GI.7, and HuNoV GII.4 to assess the effectiveness of both methods.
The Concentrating Pipette Method, which requires only benchtop equipment and involves fewer steps per sample, was able to detect as few as 102 genomes. It yielded comparable results for most food matrices tested—namely strawberries, blackberries, lettuce, and green onions—in 35% less time. These findings indicate that the Concentrating Pipette ultrafiltration method is effective for routine analysis of enteric viruses in food matrices throughout the food production and surveillance chain.
The study entitled, Concentration of foodborne viruses eluted from fresh and frozen produce: Applicability of ultrafiltration Trudel-Ferland, et al. was published in the International Journal of Food Microbiology
