Microbiological Monitoring of Soft Drinks Water Production

Project

A global soft drink producer faced recurring microbiological problems within the water production process at one of their production sites. Every 3 weeks the entire plant had to be shut down for a CIP, but problems returned after 2-3 weeks of production.

Solution

The ColiMinder was installed and is used to measure microbiological activity in different points at the producers bottling plant. With a 15 minute time to result, it only took 1 day to locate the contamination hotspots within the process. The ColiMinder Total Activity measurements are much more sensitive than the HPC tests used by the quality lab to determine CFU/ml. All HPC tests of measurements had showed 0 CFU/ml.

Benefits

The installation of the ColiMinder resulted in increased production safety. It also provided real-time process feedback to ensure process integrity and, if necessary, adjustment of process parameters.