Digital-Enabled Food Safety Testing
June 11, 2024

In recent years, we have witnessed a groundswell of digital enablement for food safety testing management. Software is being made available that provides a digitized and automated approach to managing, communicating, and providing a more preventive testing and sanitation program. This has been characterized by many advancements, the topmost of which are as follows:
- Connectivity: Systems and tools are becoming more digitally connected. This includes food safety testing devices, such as ATP readers, plate readers, and microbiology testing platforms. Laboratories and laboratory information management systems (LIMS) are also integrating with cloud software platforms to provide a seamless approach to sending and receiving test information digitally, thereby reducing the risk of human error. This automated connectivity delivers more rapid “time-to-information,” alleviating many of the risks associated with slow response times due to manual information gathering and analysis.
- Analytical Know-How: Food safety professionals are gaining a deeper understanding of the use and value of digital analytics tools. As time has progressed, a new generation of food safety leaders are coming to the job with background knowledge and an expectation of access to such tools. These modern-day professionals demand access to testing data, diagnostic results, and corrective action status, along with the analytical tools necessary to meet increasing requirements for regulatory compliance and conformance to internal policies.
- Actionable Information: The ability to automate the collection, aggregation, and modeling of food safety testing data supports a critical advancement: the transformation of raw data into actionable information. Forward-thinking food safety teams are leveraging this power to change their processes to embrace a new digitally enabled reality – one in which diagnostic results trigger automatic alerts. Food safety teams can define the rules and thresholds they wish to adhere to, then set alert commands that bring the data to life. In this way, the data automatically finds the right people when the data triggers are met – namely before an adverse event occurs. These teams are now getting ahead of the curve and truly establishing a more preventive approach versus the reactionary methods of the past.
This may sound like a space-age scenario, one that takes years and special skills to achieve. You may be closer than you think to making the leap to a digitally enabled future, however. Hundreds of food safety teams have carved the path as new methods for ingesting spreadsheet-based and lab diagnostic data have been automated.
We invite you to listen to some real-world examples as related directly by those who have adopted a fully digitized approach to managing their environmental testing:
Neogen makes it easy to get started — we are investing in the future of digital enablement on behalf of our customers. Our SmartStart trial program features no-cost access for up to six months to Neogen Analytics, our innovative food safety testing automation platform. Click here to learn more.
Category: Food Safety, Consumer Goods, Dietary Supplements, Food & Beverage, Pet Food, Allergens, Microbiology, Pathogens, Environmental Monitoring