Automated Colony Counter for Food Safety Labs
AI-powered counting for coliforms, yeast, mold, and environmental Listeria monitoring. 21 CFR Part 11 audit trails. Designed and assembled in the USA.
IncuCount is an automated colony counter built for food safety and beverage microbiology labs that need accurate colony counts at a pace that matches production. In a published validation study, IncuCount averaged 99.27% accuracy across multiple plate samples using E. coli on MacConkey agar. That accuracy holds whether your lab is reading five plates or two hundred, which matters when every count feeds a hold-and-release decision.
Keeping Up With High-Volume Testing Without Sacrificing Accuracy
A food safety lab rarely runs the same volume two days in a row. A normal week might mean forty to sixty plates a day. Then a production surge, a new supplier qualification round, or a Listeria investigation pushes that number well past a hundred. Manual counting does not flex with that kind of swing. An automated colony counter does.
IncuCount reads a plate in only a few seconds, whether it's the first plate of the day or the two-hundredth. Counting speed and counting accuracy both stay constant regardless of volume. Manual counting slows down and gets less consistent as the day goes on and colony loads climb.
What Peak-Season Volume Does to Manual Counting Accuracy
Manual counting depends on a person, and people get tired. As plate counts climb through a shift, that fatigue affects how carefully each plate gets read.
Counts can also vary between technicians and between shifts. Two people reading the same plate under time pressure will not always agree on a borderline colony, and there's no way to check that after the fact with a manual count alone.
Manual counting also requires a second step: transcribing the result into your LIMS. That transcription step is a second opportunity for error on top of the count itself. Automated colony counting removes it, since the count exports directly.
The Real Cost of a Slow or Inconsistent Count
A slow count delays a hold-and-release decision. Product sits while the lab works through a backlog, which creates real cost in storage time and friction with production scheduling.
An inconsistent count carries a bigger risk. If a recall investigation turns up different counting methods or unexplained variation between results, that variation becomes something you have to explain, not just a number you report. High-throughput labs counting pathogens on selective media need results they can stand behind across hundreds of plates a day. That's the problem automated colony counting solves.
Built for the Media and Organisms Food Safety Labs Actually Test
A food safety lab doesn't run one plate type. IncuCount is compatible with standard 100mm Petri dishes, PetriFilm, CompactDry, and Microfast, along with a range of media including Nutrient Agar, Plate Count Agar, Potato Dextrose Agar, Tryptic Soy Agar, MacConkey Agar, and chromogenic media. The system captures a high-resolution image of each plate and applies AI-driven detection to count colonies regardless of plate type.
Coliform, Yeast, and Mold Counts in Seconds
IncuCount applies machine learning and high-resolution imaging to the plates a food safety lab runs every day, including coliform, yeast, and mold counts and total aerobic plate counts. On the IC-150 and IC-200 models, color differentiation distinguishes up to ten different colony colors, which helps separate coliforms from background growth on chromogenic and selective media. The IC-75 does not include color differentiation.
Specific applications include raw water analysis, drinking water plate counts, juice yeast and mold counts, and carbonated beverage microbial growth analysis, in addition to routine coliform, yeast, and mold testing.
Environmental Monitoring for Listeria Control Programs
Environmental monitoring is its own workflow: swab a surface, plate on selective agar, incubate, and count. IncuCount ties every plate image to its operator, timestamp, and count, which gives you the record you need to show exactly what was found and when, whether that's for your own corrective action process or for an auditor asking to see the data behind a result.
Is an Automated Colony Counter Accurate Enough for Food Safety Testing?
Yes. In a published validation study, IncuCount averaged 99.27% accuracy across multiple plate samples, using E. coli colonies grown on MacConkey agar in standard 100mm dishes. That figure is documented and available for review, not an estimate.
How the Accuracy Study Was Run
The study ran multiple plate samples across a range of colony densities to reflect real lab conditions, not just a best-case sample. Full methodology and plate-by-plate results are available on the IncuCount 200 accuracy report page, along with an interactive tool where you can test the system against your own plate images.
Does It Correlate With AOAC Reference Methods
Automated counts are built to align with standard plate count methodology, and any lab bringing IncuCount into a food safety workflow should run its own correlation study against its current reference method as part of implementation. That's standard practice for any new counting method entering a regulated or GFSI-audited workflow, automated or manual.
IncuCount has not claimed formal AOAC Performance Tested Method certification. Correlation with AOAC reference methods is demonstrated through Newlander's own validation testing, not a third-party PTM review.