Lansing-based Neogen Corp., which develops and markets products dedicated to food and animal safety, has developed a faster test to determine meat speciation in raw meat and environmental samples.
The test, called Reveal, checks for horse, beef, sheep, and poultry and provides results in five minutes after a water extraction. The test can detect as little as 0.5 percent of the target species in raw meat or raw processed samples. They have also been validated for use with environmental swabs and rinse-water samples. The test joins Neogen’s existing test for pork.
“We developed these tests to meet the need for quick and easy tests to help prevent the accidental or deliberate inclusion of other meats in raw processed meats, and to validate cleaning following product changeovers,” says John Adent, president and CEO.
Adent says during internal and independent testing, the Reveal tests have been shown to accurately detect the target species. They did not produce false positive results if the samples contained only meat from non-target species.
Neogen’s full line of meat speciation products include BioKits tests for species identification. They are available for cooked pork, beef, poultry, and sheep, as well as for raw cow, pig, sheep, poultry, and horse species.
The company’s products detect foodborne bacteria, natural toxins, food allergens, drug residues, plant diseases, and sanitation concerns. Neogen’s animal safety division develops animal genomics and health care products.
