Help Guide: Interpreting the Results of Your EasyPlate Microbiological Tests

EasyPlates from Kikkoman are a range of ready-to-use, prepared media plates designed to simplify routine microbiological testing in food and beverage laboratories. They help laboratory, technical, and quality teams save time, increase incubation capacity, and reduce costs.

Key Benefits

  • A convenient alternative to traditional agar plates, eliminating the need to prepare culture media from scratch, sterilise equipment, or wait for agar to set.
  • A hydrophobic boundary around the culture medium keeps your sample contained within the defined test area, preventing overflow and helping to ensure valid results.
  • The defined culture area removes the need for a separate spreading tool, making the testing process simpler and more efficient.
  • A compact film format and stackable design require just one-twentieth of the space needed for conventional Petri dishes. This space-saving benefit allows you to significantly increase incubation capacity, while reducing storage requirements and the amount of waste produced.

Reading Your Results

A further benefit of EasyPlates is how easy it is to read the results. EasyPlates produce characteristic colour changes in response to the target organism, making colonies easy to count and interpret.

To illustrate this, let’s take a closer look at the EasyPlate Ready-To-Use Microbiological Test for E.coli and Coliform.

EXAMPLE: EasyPlate Microbiological Test for E.coli & Coliform

EasyPlate EC is a prepared film medium for the detection, identification, and enumeration of Escherichia coli and non-E. coli coliform bacteria. The plate contains two chromogenic substrates that produce distinct colony colours:

  • E. coli: blue-purple to navy-blue colonies.
  • Other coliforms: pink to red-purple colonies.

Most E. coli produce Ξ²-glucuronidase and develop the expected blue colouring. E. coli O157 does not typically produce this enzyme and may therefore appear red-purple, similar to non-E. coli coliforms. This colour differentiation makes colonies easier to identify and count.

Results are available following incubation for 24 Β± 1 hours at 35 Β± 1Β°C.

Example Colonies after 24 Hours Incubation (Strains)

Listeria monocytogenes (ATCC 19118)

Listeria monocytogenes (JCM 7671)

Listeria innocua (JCM 32814)

Listeria welshimeri (JCM 32816)

NOTE: In some unheated foods and dairy products, residual enzymes present in the food may cause a red-violet colouring to develop across the entire incubation area. If this affects the visibility of individual colonies, improved results can usually be obtained by testing at a greater dilution.

EasyPlate Colony Counting System

For even greater time savings and reduced operator error, the EasyPlate Colony Counting System automates the entire counting process.

The system allows you to scan multiple plates at once. Using image-analysis technology, it then detects and counts colonies automatically, including spread colonies. With the EasyPlate Colony Counting System, you can:

  • Automatically detect and count colonies.
  • Apply preconfigured assessment parameters.
  • Review and amend results.
  • Add comments to individual analyses.

This flexibility helps to improve the consistency and accuracy of your results, while allowing the system to adapt to the specific needs of your site.

The software is free of charge for customers using EasyPlates, so the only additional cost is the purchase of the printer.

To learn more about EasyPlate Microbiological Tests or the Colony Counting System, you can navigate the buttons below.

View our range of EasyPlate Microbiological Test Kits
Discover the EasyPlate Scanner and Colony Counting System

You can also reach out to our support team on 01473 461800Β orΒ sales@klipspringer.com. Alternatively, you can share your details using the contact form below.Β 

To learn more about EasyPlate Microbiological Tests or the Colony Counting System, share your details below and we’ll be in touch.