3M Food Safety today announced the results of a new scientific study conducted by the ZERO2FIVE Food Industry Centre at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales, U.K. comparing the performance of nine ATP hygiene monitoring systems. The research concluded the 3M Clean-Trace Hygiene Monitoring and Management System was the only system to provide stable and consistent results across time and temperature.
Each system tests for the presence of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an indicator molecule for biological residue that can be found after cleaning and provides an overall measure of cleanliness in production environments. To test the stability of results produced by each system, a known amount of ATP was applied on the swab and read repeatedly over two minutes. The researchers analyzed how the results varied over time, with tests conducted at 10°C, 20°C and 35°C.