This week, CERTUS announced its entry into the food safety industry with the launch of the CERTUS System for rapid pathogen detection and environmental monitoring.

The CERTUS System raises the bar with a unique bio-contained, in-house solution for pathogen detection for small and mid-sized food processing plants. Unmatched in its unique approach to an industry dominated by outsourcing or complicated in-house testing, this system will make food safer by providing producers fast, easy and cost-effective ways to detect environmental Listeria in food processing environments and the food itself prior to reaching consumers.

CERTUS makes environmental testing and monitoring, which was once complex, a “Simple, Safe and Smart” process, greatly reducing time and cost by eliminating media preparation, sample preparation, courier expense and risk of opening an enriched sample in the plant. Anyone with minimal training will simply swab a surface, add media to the Bio-LockTM Detection Tube, and insert the tube into the CERTUS Detection Unit to start getting rapid results during the enrichment cycle. There is no need for centrifuges, incubators, pipettes, stomachers, bags and many ancillary items and steps that current methods require.

“We are focused on building a business that solves real problems,” says CERTUS president John Coomes. “Now with FSMA compliance requirements, small and medium-sized producers face expensive outsourced testing that takes days for results to come in or they need to invest in bio-safe labs, expensive equipment, and highly skilled lab technicians. Our customers will avoid all of those risks and expenses. CERTUS is part of a family-owned business that’s spent the past seven generations improving the foundations that businesses are built on. Now we get to apply this tradition and passion to make a difference in how food is made, tested and verified as, ‘Safe for you and your family’.”