Puritan sampling kits combat food industry contamination
Manufactured in ISO 9001:2008 plant in Maine, US
Puritan Medical Products, a US manufacturer of medical, forensic and clinical swabs, has launched a series of sampling kits that it claims meet growing demand in the food industry for better ways to combat contamination.
The firm controls quality and on-time delivery of the products by manufacturing the EnviroMax, EnviroMax Plus and ESK Sampling Kit in its ISO 9001:2008 production facility in Guilford, Maine.
The EnviroMax (dry) and EnviroMax Plus (pre-moistened) kits have strong, flexible handle shafts, available with two tip options of absorbent foam. These tips have an inner paddle structure that facilitates getting into the tightest of crevices, where contaminants may be hiding. The kits' swabs and shafts are bright white, so that visual detection of colorimetric changes is easy to see.
In addition, the kits are produced as complete surface-testing kits, in secure tubes with leak-proof caps that block gasification as well as liquid spills that help to ensure testing efficacy.
The ESK Sampling Kit, available in November, is offered with a range of fill solutions. The swabs used in the ESK product are Puritan's flock swabs, which offer superior collection and release qualities, the firm says.
The products were designed in consultation with the food industry, says Timothy Templet, Puritan’s executive vice president for global sales.
“Food producers now need to know as quickly as possible whether their products are contaminated – before these products are shipped. They cannot afford to wait until the food is on the store shelves,” he says.
The Puritan environmental swabs are a new product from a company that is nearly 100 years old.
Puritan’s parent company, Hardwood Products, began 92 years ago as a manufacturer of tongue depressors, made from the fine-grained wood of the white birches that surrounded the northern Maine plant. After this the company produced cotton-tipped swabs for use by doctors and hospitals, followed by the many clinical and diagnostic products for which the company is known today.