Western researchers develop E.coli testing kit to keep contaminated food off store shelves

New E. coli test could be food safety game changer CTV London's Celine Moreau on a test created at Western that could stop contaminated food before it hits store shelves.

Researchers at Western University are hoping to revolutionize food safety testing with a new rapid testing kit that would identify E.coli in food well before it ever makes it into the grocery store.

The kit, which detects E. coli 0157, a food-borne bacteria most often found in ground meat, has been approved by Health Canada for commercial use.

The announcement of the kit is especially timely after Health officials in Canada and the U.S. warned people to avoid eating romaine lettuce because of a new E. coli outbreak.

“Our goal is to get the testing to occur as close as possible to the source,” said Dr. Michael Rieder in a press release.

Rieder is a professor at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and scientist at Robarts Research Institute.

“This technology is not only faster, but it’s less expensive, it’s easy to use, and it can occur right in the processing plant,” Rieder says.

The kit detects a protein unique to the E. coli bacteria, and is able show results in hours rather than days.

The process works like a pregnancy test  showing one line for negative and two lines for positive.