Spoilage Detection 

Loss through spoilage can be costly for producers of beverages , irrespective of whether it affects ingredients or a finished product. However, whereas spoilage of ingredients or in-process products usually only leads to a direct financial loss, the consequences are more severe if it concerns a final product which has reached the market. On top of the costs of the lost product and its recall, customer confidence and brand image may be seriously affected.

Typical culprits
Spoilage organisms can be extremely specific to individual products or processing plants, and can therefore be difficult to detect by generic methods. However, there are typical culprits: groups or individual species of micro-organisms which cause spoilage of certain beverages, either in-process or in the finished product.

Specific solutions for reliable detection 
Merck offers a range of convenient granulated and ready-to-use culture media specifically for growing common spoilage organisms in beverages, such as wild yeast in beer, Brettanomyces / Dekkera in wine and Alicyclobacillus in juices and concentrates, soft drinks and fruit-based products.