3M announced the global launch of the 3M Petrifilm Rapid Aerobic Count Plate, the next generation of its accurate and easy test that can detect aerobic bacteria counts in just 24 hours for most food matrices. 3M said it launched its first 3M Petrifilm Plate, the 3M Petrifilm Aerobic Count Plate, 30 years ago. This solution has been widely viewed as a step forward in ensuring the quality and safety of food manufacturers' products and freeing space and productivity in their labs.

Petrifilm Rapid Aerobic Count Plate, which has been proven to be as reliable as Standard Methods Agar, offers a faster time-to-result, technology that reduces the impact of spreader colonies, and a simplified inoculation area to drive greater efficiency and reduce costly retesting and delayed results. It also leverages a dual-sensing indicator technology for easy enumeration of colonies in raw material, in-process and finished product food testing as well as environmental air, swab or surface contact testing. The new 3M Petrifilm Rapid Aerobic Count Plate has received certification (#121403) from the AOAC INTERNATIONAL Performance Tested Methods (PTM) programme inserts.

Specific studies performed as part of this certification involved comparison tests to the FDA BAM and USDA reference methods, along with robustness and lot-to-lot/stability testing.