Microbiological Result Record

This record judges one micro result against its own limit and decides the immediate response. Sampling itself, verifying the test method, and running the root-cause investigation that follows each belong to a different template.

BRCGS cl.5.6 requires micro results to be checked against a documented limit and a response to a failing result decided and recorded. The fields below carry that obligation through the form.

BRCGS certification travels with the product, so the instrument that actually gets tested in an audit, a recall, or a court depends on where the affected batch was sold, not where it was made.

Filling in every field does not make a micro result defensible on its own. Four judgement calls decide whether the response actually matches what happened.

These are the patterns that turn up most often when a microbiological result record is reviewed after the fact, rather than at the point the result was first read.

A ready-to-eat site received a Listeria monocytogenes detected result four days after a chilled batch had cleared quality release. Whoever opened the result record that afternoon marked Product Still On Site as Yes and Proportion Already Despatched as None, because nothing on their screen showed otherwise, and Investigation Opened was set to Not required with the result filed as an isolated positive.

A retailer complaint the following week traced back to the same batch code, and the despatch log showed the full batch had shipped two days before the result even arrived. The record was reopened, the hold and withdrawal fields corrected, and an OOS investigation raised retrospectively. The gap was never the laboratory result itself; it was a record completed against an assumption instead of the goods-out log sitting one system away.

The form is the easy part. Checking product position against the despatch log, not memory, and making sure a positive result actually reaches a hold before it reaches a shelf, is the work that actually slips.

KnowQuality

Holds the microbiological result record against the sample log and specification limits, and blocks a Not-required investigation answer when the result category says otherwise.

KnowSafe

Tracks authority notification and withdrawal decisions arising from an out-of-spec result, so a positive that should reach a regulator or a customer does not stall inside quality review.

KnowLogistics

Holds the despatch and goods-out record this template depends on, so product position is answered against what actually shipped, not against what the record author assumed.

Ella

Coordinates the crew, rolls completion and exceptions into one view, and holds every write for your approval before it touches a record.

CFU

Colony forming unit, the standard measure of viable microbial count in a sample, expressed per gram, per swab, or per millilitre depending on the test.

Total viable count (TVC)

A general measure of the total microbial load in a sample, used as a hygiene indicator rather than to detect a specific pathogen.

Enterobacteriaceae

A family of bacteria used as a process hygiene indicator; a raised count signals a hygiene or process control issue rather than necessarily an unsafe product.

Out of specification (OOS)

A result that falls outside its documented limit, triggering an investigation into cause rather than simple retesting until a pass is obtained.

Withdrawal

Removing affected product from the supply chain before it reaches the consumer, distinct from a recall which reaches product already in consumers' hands.