Efficiency of PetrifilmTM Staph Express Count Plate for the Enumeration of Staphylococcus aureus in Meat, Fishery Product, and Korean Traditional Foods
To enumerate Staphylococcus aureus in food, Baird-Parker Agar (BPA) is usually used in the conventional method, However it requires time and space for the preparation and plating, and incubation. Thus, use of the 3MTM PetrifilmTM Staph Express Count Plate (STX Petrifilm) might be appropriate to solve these challenging problems. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency of STX Petrifilm with BPA for enumeration of S. aureus in various foods. A mixture of S. aureus strains ATCC29213, ATCC25923, and ATCC13565 was inoculated on marinated pork chop, beef (chuck tender), dried filefish, semi-dried squid, rice cake, and Japchae (stir-fried glass noodles) at 2, 3, 5, and 7 Log CFU/g. S. aureus cell counts were enumerated by spread-plating on STX Petrifilm and BPA after 0 and 24 hours at 4oC (marinated pork chop, beef, semi-dried squid, and stir-fried glass noodles) and 25oC (dried filefish and rice cake). Recovery of STX Petrifilm for S. aureus from various food samples was compared with BPA, and the results showed that there were no significant differences between two selective media in all cases. The results indicated that STX Petrifilm had enough efficiency to recover S. aureus from various foods as well as saving time and space.