Guittard Chocolate Heavily Reduces False Positives With GENE-UP®

May 19, 2020

Maintaining the safety of their products is the utmost priority for food product manufacturers. This not only ensures that customers can trust their brand, but consistent testing also improves public health. With products and a brand that are reliable, a company remains competitive and financially stable.

As a high-quality chocolate product manufacturer, Guittard Chocolate had the same idea in mind. With a long history of dedication to using the most innovative pathogen detection systems, Guittard Chocolate found that bioMérieux was the perfect partner to keep them up to date. Through the implementation of the solution GENE-UP®, Guittard Chocolate was able to reduce false positives by 30%. As a result, Guittard Chocolate saved time and money so that their products were released faster and their laboratories were able to function more effectively.

Based in California, Guittard Chocolate is a premium chocolate product manufacturer that was established in 1868. With a long-standing history of using bacterial detection technologies to keep their products safe, Guittard Chocolate already began testing their products for Salmonella in the 1970s. With customer safety as their major priority, they implemented traditional pathogen testing solutions like ELISA and PCR. Today, with food safety at the forefront of their thoughts, they chose a new pathogen detection system known as GENE-UP® in order to ensure on-demand products are released quickly and their customers remain satisfied.

Guittard Chocolate’s quality team was searching for a way to improve their food safety testing without having to sacrifice their bottom line. As a chocolate product manufacturer, Guittard Chocolate is heavily reliant on their laboratories working as efficiently as possible. After years of using a competitor’s PCR system, they knew they needed a change if they were to keep up with their product demands.

Guittard Chocolate’s quality team was searching for a way to improve their food safety testing without having to sacrifice their bottom line. As a chocolate product manufacturer, Guittard Chocolate is heavily reliant on their laboratories working as efficiently as possible. After years of using a competitor’s PCR system, they knew they needed a change if they were to keep up with their product demands.

The use of a traditional PCR system for pathogen testing was halting production, threatening their reputation, and simply cost too much. False positives and unstable reagents were creating obstacles to releasing their products to the market in a timely manner. They needed to find a way to select the most effective system that fit their on-demand production requirements.

Working together with the bioMérieux scientific support team, Guittard Chocolate set out to find the solution they needed. In order to do so, they implemented a rigorous 9 month assessment to discover the full facts. At the end of this assessment, the best option was clear: bioMérieux’s solution GENE-UP® was perfectly able to solve their problems.

GENE-UP® ticked all of the boxes to improve Guittard Chocolate’s food safety testing workflow. It reduced false positives by 30% and improved their laboratory efficiency so that teams were able to manage other responsibilities. In addition, they opted for the VILINK®, which is a remote support tool that provided rapid assistance, reduced downtimes, and improved productivity. What’s more, GENE-UP® enabled Guittard Chocolate to have faster response times when contaminants were detected. This protected their reputation and saved them time and money.

With such positive results, the GENE-UP® system cost-effectively and efficiently revolutionized Guittard Chocolate’s entire food product testing process. Furthermore, their partnership with bioMérieux improved their brand reputation with their customers. When Guittard Chocolate gives tours of their labs, their customers are particularly impressed by a partnership with such a reputable industry leader in food safety technology like bioMérieux.

GENE-UP® is an easy to install yet highly effective real-time pathogen detection solution. The innovative GENE-UP® system simplifies laboratory workflows and reduces false positives. Its automated and precise bacterial detection system helps food manufacturers release products more quickly and ensure their safety over the long-term, saving both time and money.

Discover GENE-UP’s benefits

• 30% reduction in false positives
• Improved laboratory efficiency
• Faster response time when a contaminant is detected
• Protected reputation
• Time and cost savings