Put simply, Hygiene Detectives come to your workplace and use the latest technology called ATP testing, to quickly determine just how clean and hygienic commonly touched surfaces are.

What is ATP?

ATP, or Adenosine triphosphate, is an organic compound that is found in all forms of life. This means that wherever you find ATP, you know there is organic matter of some kind present.

Where there’s ATP there’s…

This is the interesting part. The organic material that ATP sampling detects can include:

  • Food residue
  • Bacteria
  • Fungi/moulds
  • Allergens
  • Bodily fluids

Although ATP swabbing can’t tell you what organic material is present on a surface, when measuring cleanliness, the amount of ATP detected on a surface accurately quantifies the level of contamination by organic material. In most situations, the level of organic contamination relates directly to overall surface cleanliness.

A second consideration is that surfaces with organic material contamination are ideal places for other unwanted organisms to grow, often forming biofilms which can be difficult to remove, particularly if you don’t know that they are there.

How does the ATP testing process work in practice?

We send out a Hygiene Detectives mobile team with an ATP testing device and they swab the areas in your premises, called control points, where you want to measure cleanliness.
The swab can then be activated immediately for on-the-spot results, or retained for up to four hours for later testing. Once activated, a chemical reaction occurs that causes the ATP to emit light. The more ATP present the brighter the light.

The swab is then inserted in the test unit which very accurately measures the level of light being emitted. This is converted in Relative Light Units or RLU’s and this number is used to quantify surface cleanliness for that control point.
SWAB
TEST
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How much testing do we?

Every business is different, so the amount of testing will vary from business to business.
Our Hygiene Detectives team will work with you to understand your individual needs, which includes choosing the location and number of areas to test, the required frequency of testing, setting acceptable surface cleanliness limits and providing access to SureTrend, our test data analysis platform.

What are the advantages of ATP testing?

  • Fast accurate results
    • From swabbing the surface to getting the results takes 60 seconds.
    • Results can be recorded on-the-spot into the SureTrend software and are available immediately.
  • Cost-effective testing
    • One person can test areas in one visit and give results on-site if needed.
    • Samples don’t need to be sent away and no laboratory testing is needed.
  • Forms part of an ongoing testing regime
    • Results are reported against previously determined and agreed acceptable levels of contamination.
    • Results are recorded and documented allowing you to easily demonstrate levels of cleanliness of tested areas.
  • Can provide traffic light results as feedback to cleaners. 
    • Having acceptable levels of contamination for each area being tested allows results to be given as pass/monitor/fail.
    • Cleaners get vital feedback on just how well their processes are or aren’t working.
  • Allows cost-effectiveness of cleaning regimes to be evaluated.
    • Hygiene Detective reports can highlight if businesses are not getting the cleaning service levels that they are paying for.
    • Similarly, some businesses may be paying for a cleaning regime more extensive than they need. 
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