MC-Media PadTM EB (MMP-EB) , a novel sheet culture method for the enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae, has been evaluated. When both inclusivity and exclusivity of MMP-EB were assessed using 104 microbes including 51 Enterobacteriaceae strains, all tested Enterobacteriaceae strains grew and formed obvious red-colored colonies and all tested non-Enterobacteriaceae strains were shown different appearance from Enterobacteriaceae strains. For the comparison study of the method, MMP-EB was compared with violet red bile glucose agar (VRBG) according to ISO 21528-2:2017 and PetrifilmTM Enterobacteriaceae Count Plate (Petrifilm EB) method using 100 naturally contaminated food samples. The correlation coefficients between MMP-EB and VRBG, and MMP-EB and Petrifilm EB were 0.940 and 0.972, respectively. Furthermore, there were no statistically significant difference between MMP-EB and both reference methods. Our results demonstrated that MMP-EB was a suitable alternative method for the enumeration of Enterobacteriaceae in food samples.
Keywords: Dry culture medium; Enterobacteriaceae; ISO 21528-2:2017.