EVALUATION OF THE SPIRAL PLATE AND LASER COLONY COUNTING TECHNIQUES FOR THE ENUMERATION OF BACTERIA IN FOODS

(1) In a parallel study, samples of food and dairy products, bacterial cultures and spore suspensions were examined by two operators using both the spiral plate and surface drop techniques for counting bacteria. (2) Statistical analyses of the results showed no differences between the methods at the 5% level of probability; regression and correlation coefficients were highly significant. A variation between paired counts of less than 0.5 log10 cycles was given by 95% of the samples. (3) The replicate variances of both methods were <0.006, indicating good agreement betweeen duplicate plates. (4) An electronic laser counter used in this study was found to give comparable results (r=0.966) to the grid-method of colony counting in a substantially shorter time. (5) Analysis of operation times and material requirements for each method showed that significant savings in cost, time, space and support labour could be achieved with the spiral plate method over conventional techniques. © 1979 Springer-Verlag.