Easy Plate SA plate for rapid Staphylococcus aureus testing | Kikkoman

1. Introduction to the Easy Plate medium plate

- Easy Plate is a convenient ready-prepared medium plate that needs no preparation or sterilisation. Easy Plate is an easy-to-use alternative to preparing media in-house with traditional medium plates, saving time and effort and reducing waste.

- Easy Plate SA is a ready-to-use dry medium plate from Kikkoman Biochemifa (Japan), designed specifically to test and quantify Staphylococcus aureus (golden staphylococcus) – an important pathogenic bacterium commonly found in food, drinking water, cosmetics and production environments.

- This is a dry, sterile medium plate line that needs no complex preparation, saving laboratory time and improving the efficiency of microbiological analysis.

- Using Easy Plate as a food microbiology test tool – with a volume of only about 1/20 of a conventional petri dish – saves space and lets you carry out more tests in your existing incubator space. Easy Plate is pre-packaged and, right after opening the packaging, you can place the sample suspension on the medium and start incubation.

- The plate is designed as a dry medium sheet that is settled and ready to use immediately, with no need to prepare medium or sterilise.

2. Specifications of the Easy Plate SA plate for rapid Staphylococcus aureus testing

- Product name: Easy Plate SA medium plate

- Product code: 61976

- Application: rapid testing of Staphylococcus aureus

- Incubation time: 24 ± 1 hours

- Incubation temperature: 35 or 37 ± 1℃

- Storage conditions (unopened): 2 - 8℃

- After opening: after opening the bag, fold the opened end at least twice and seal it with tape. Store in a refrigerator (2 to 8 °C) and use within 3 months.

- Shelf life 18 months from the date of manufacture

- Certification: AOAC RI PTM certified.

3. Principle

- The Easy Plate SA contains a selective medium specific for Staphylococcus aureus.

- When the test sample is pipetted onto the plate, the bacteria in the sample grow on the surface of the membrane filter impregnated with the medium.

- After a suitable incubation time (usually 24–48 hours at 35–37°C), the golden staphylococcus colonies appear with a characteristic colour and shape, making them easy to recognise and count.

- Light-coloured colonies are easy to distinguish within 24 hours. Identification is easier than with plate count agar, because the colour change makes confirmation of the egg yolk reaction unnecessary.

- The incubation time is shortened to 24 hours, improving the time to report results.

- Only one plate is needed when using Easy Plate, whereas the surface plating method requires three plates or more.

- Some S. aureus that give a negative egg yolk reaction on conventional agar media can be detected on Easy Plate.

- Many bacteria other than S. aureus are inhibited by the selective medium. Colonies that are not Staphylococcus aureus grow but are very easy to recognise because they are pink to reddish-purple.

- High correlation with traditional agar plates in various types of food. *

- The S. aureus colonies that grow are blue, which makes them easy to recognise and count. The Easy Plate SA medium inhibits other bacteria, but if they do grow they appear pink to reddish-purple so that they can be easily distinguished.

4. Notable benefits of the Easy Plate SA plate

Compared with the traditional pour-plate method, Easy Plate SA offers many outstanding benefits:

- Convenient: dry plate, ready to use, no need to prepare medium or additional equipment.

- Saves time & effort: fewer preparation steps, easy to handle even for beginners.

- Accurate & reliable: the selective medium limits other microorganisms, ensuring an accurate quantitative result for Staphylococcus aureus.

- Safe & compact: thin design, easy to store, less plastic waste than traditional petri dishes.

- Meets international standards: trusted by laboratories, food manufacturing plants and testing institutes worldwide.

5. Applications

Easy Plate SA is widely used in the following fields:

- Food & beverages: testing for golden staphylococcus in meat, seafood, milk, processed products, soft drinks...

- Drinking water & purified water: assessing microbiological quality and safety.

- Cosmetics & pharmaceuticals: detecting harmful microorganisms in raw materials and finished products.

- Production quality control: monitoring the production environment, equipment and contact surfaces.

6. Examples

- Reference strain Staphylococcus aureus on the Easy Plate SA

- Food samples on the Easy Plate SA Staphylococcus aureus plate

PacificLAB is the official distributor of Kikkoman Easy Plate products in Vietnam. Please contact us for a quotation and detailed information about this product.