Häagen-Dazs Reduce Result Times Thanks to TEMPO^®

Häagen-Dazs is a leading ice-cream and sorbet manufacturer in the US. In order to maintain Häagen-Dazs’s goal of upholding stringent regulatory standards, the Microbiology Laboratory Manager, Sophie Cornu, opted for TEMPO® from bioMérieux. TEMPO® is an automated system that tests for a wide range of microorganisms, which reduced times to final readings. TEMPO® was effective in that heavily improved on traditional testing methods in a highly-efficient and cost-effective manner.

Established in 1961, Häagen-Dazs is one of the leading ice cream and sorbet manufacturers in the US. Later on in 1992, Häagen-Dazs decided to add a production site in Tilloy-lès-Mofflaines, France, due to its high quality milk products. 

This production site now exports 80% of its products to 84 countries globally : upholding regulatory standards is thus absolutely crucial. From its foundation, Häagen-Dazs has always invested heavily in ensuring that it meets customer standards by maintaining strict regulatory standards for all products. 

As a leading ice cream manufacturer, Häagen-Dazs must follow stringent regulatory standards for testing their products. The company needed to find a method to improve its time to results upon traditional methods. The laboratory is “an essential partner in the production process“, states Sophie Cornu, relaying that improved working conditions in the labwould provide improved conditions across the entire operational process.

In order to maintain these standards, Sophie Cornu, the site’s Microbiology Lab Manager, chose to implement TEMPO®, an automated food pathogen detection system. 

The older, more traditional method that Häagen-Dazs was using for testing flora, yeast and molds was not providing fast enough results, undermining their ability for standardization and automation. Once Ms. Cornu implemented TEMPO® in 2016 after the successful use of other the CHEMUNEX® system, there were “significant time-to- result savings by delivering total counts within 24 hours and yeasts/molds in 72 hours,” says Ms Cornu. This created an overall increase to laboratory organization through these accurate and reliable results. 

bioMérieux provided full service support with an expert team so that installation went smoothly. An automatic system connectivity to the LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System)  as well as full data traceability combined with analytical speed helped Häagen-Dazs being more responsive in adjusting production and correcting any quality defects. 

Häagen-Dazs’s main goal has always been “to achieve better data traceability and connectivity, to consolidate our future development,”explains Ms Cornu. Due to TEMPO®’s time-to-results gains, Häagen-Dazs was able to optimize workflows and increase analytical productivity at a rate of 30%. They also recorded a “45% time savings on mandatory analysis stages.” TEMPO® system’s implementation allowed for Häagen-Dazs’s to deliver quality products in a timely and cost-effective manner that improved their entire laboratory functionality.

The TEMPO® system uses completely automated microbiology testing for quality indicators in food products as well as other types of samples in a laboratory. 

It includes a quality indicator enumeration of total viable counts, coliform counts, generic E. coli, and Enterobacteriaceae, lactic acid bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus, yeast and molds, and Bacillus cereus for food and environmental samples. 

TEMPO® is particularly useful for the agricultural and food industriesand provides effective and accurate results.

Learn more about TEMPO®

Learn more about TEMPO^®