MOCON adds food scientist to support GreenLight food safety product line

With master degrees in both food science and biology, Liu has been brought onboard to help MOCON customers find solutions for complex bacterial detection issues.

“Every processing environment and product presents a unique set of food safety challenges.  That’s why MOCON felt it was important to bring in a food scientist with experience in this area.  The objective is to provide an enhanced level of individual technical support,” explains, Alan Traylor, MOCON’s business manager of food safety products.  “We wanted to have someone on our team who spoke the same ‘language’ as the person using the instrumentation.”

The GreenLight series was developed to provide precise, same-day results in a cost-effective manner. Depending on the bacterial load, results can often be obtained in minutes.  This is significantly faster than the traditional agar or film plate methods, which typically require 48 hours to achieve a meaningful microbial count. Shorter testing cycles provide packers and processors (meat, poultry, seafood, dairy, produce, etc.) with the potential of getting their perishable food items to the consumer in less time.

In addition to providing customers with technical support, Liu will also be responsible for expanding applications for GreenLight technology into areas such as work place hygiene, dairy foods and healthcare packaging.

“The need for bacterial detection goes well beyond food products.  We believe that the attributes offered by the GreenLight technology make it well suited for many other applications,” Traylor said.

Liu comes to MOCON with food safety laboratory experience in both academic and corporate environments.  A native of China, Liu is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.