Aerobic Plate Count Test

As bacterial populations vary between different products, no single Aerobic Plate Count is considered standard. Instead, analysts use other benchmarks to assess the safety and hygiene of a sample.

Aliquots of the sample are pipetted into a petri dish containing a non-specific nutrient-rich media (Plate Count Agar) and incubated at 35°C under aerobic conditions for 48 hours.

Counts less than 25 reduce the accuracy during cell count (too few to be representative of a sample), and ones above 250 are likely to produce colonies too close to each other to be distinguished as distinct colony-forming units.

While our sales and customer service team are happy to answer general testing questions, consultations typically start at a rate of $250 per 30 minutes regarding the interpretation of reported test results or questions about our test methods. We cannot consult on regulations, tolerance limits, or claims.

We make every effort to keep our methods and detection limits up to date according to the latest standards and qualifications. If you have any questions regarding the limit of detection/quantification or method references, please contact our Customer Service team at 1-800-245-5615.

Our standard turnaround time is 10 business days for most assays. There are some assays that require a longer turnaround time. We also offer a RUSH service that is half the time of the standard turnaround time of the assay at double the cost of the assay. A few assays that we provide cannot be rushed due to the nature of the test. Please check the specific assay you are interested in regarding the ability to RUSH the turnaround time.

Medallion Labs, a division of General Mills, offers multiple areas of expertise for analytical testing and product evaluation for the food and ingredient industry. Our areas of expertise include Chemical Analysis, Nutritional Analysis, Food Safety, Shelf Life Studies, Microbiology, Specialty Fibers, Physical Testing, Allergen Testing, as well as Product Evaluation (which includes Product Performance and Sensory Evaluation) and Technical Consulting/Method Development. Our methods are developed for the testing of food products and ingredients.

The Aerobic Plate Count test determines the amount of aerobic mesophilic bacteria in the food product or ingredient. This does not show whether foodborne pathogens are present.