"The ISO accreditation confirms our commitment to unerring quality in the execution of our test protocols, and provides further assurance to our customers that our NeoSEEK service performs as designed," said Neogen's Joe Heinzelmann.

ISO's 17025 accreditation is the main ISO standard used by testing and calibration laboratories, and is regarded as the benchmark requirement for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories.

The letter of no objection from the USDA allowed the use of the 24-hour NeoSEEK STEC service as a confirmatory method for adulterated samples potentially containing any of the six STEC serogroups (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, and O145). The letter also states the NeoSEEK service is comparable to the reference method, FSIS MLG 5B.02, which can take three or more days to achieve a confirmatory result. This allows companies to use the NeoSEEK service to comply with the USDA's recently implemented regulation that requires the testing of raw beef trim for six new STEC serogroups, in addition to the previously regulated STEC, E. coli O157:H7.