Every year around 600 million foodborne illnesses and 420,000 deaths are caused by a series of hazards, with 80% of the cases depending on 5 bacteria.
Positive release is the approach that is being gradually introduced by the 8,000 B$ worth food industry to reduce the tremendous impact of food poisoning: products are released to the market only after lab tests assure they are safe.
However, current food safety tests are based on time-consuming cell culturing approaches to grow bacteria at detectable levels, which causes test to last 48-72 hours, and up to 5 days for specific tests.
Therefore, food manufacturers are at a crossroad: positive release means accumulating stocks in warehouses, raising costs for storage and shortening the products shelf-life for fresh foods. On the other side, compromising food safety procedures accelerates the turnover of goods but endangers the safety of consumers and the company’s reputation.
To address these issues, Bactusense has developed a completely new approach to food safety – the Bac-Tracker – which shortens the time needed for bacteria detection from days to few hours, depending on the specific test.
Our patented device leverages on a disposable silicon chip patterned with millions of micro-pillars serving as physical traps for bacteria, which are measured and detected by an optical sensor.
The system is fully automated, allowing in-house food safety tests also for companies that don’t have specialized microbiology facilities or expert operators.
After the successful lab validation, the product development roadmap is now focused on taking the technology to the industrial stage through further product optimization and in-field validation (Phase 2) together with large prospective customers, which will pave the way to the commercialization in 2021.
