Microbiology Partnership

IEH staff is prepared to provide clients with a full service approach to your microbiology problem solving needs. We are equipped to use microbiological methods to solve sanitation and spoilage problems, conduct bio-assays and validations of processes, or to design sterilization processes. To assist our clients we offer the following services:

  • Complete cause of spoilage analysis; including container integrity examination, identification and determination of probable source of causative microorganisms and remediation recommendations
  • Microbial Source Tracking (MST), a complete microbiological survey of the plant environment combined with DNA analysis of isolates to determine the sources of persistent spoilage microorganisms
  • Inoculated pack bioassay of sterilization processes that are difficult to simulate or for which conventional heat penetration or other testing methods are problematic
  • Source of calibrated spores test strips and organisms for use in bioassays of processes
  • Thermal death time studies to establish appropriate sterilizing values for food or pharmaceutical systems
  • Microbiological challenges and assays of "cold fill" food process systems
  • Sterilant assays
  • Available mobile bio-hazard level 3 laboratories
  • Consultations