From process water, to water which will be consumed in the products, there is not a person or virtually any industry that is not dependant upon microbial testing for the safety of their food supplies.

From the airline and cruise ship industries, to bottled water manufacturers, breweries and the hotel industry;- all are dependant upon regular accurate microbial analysis for the safety of the food and beverages which we consume.

With global growing population, increased concerns over biosecurity and the construction and expansion of automated food processing facilities, world-wide, it is no wonder that projections for testing cite significant increase in demand for rapid method detection systems,  over the next decade.

In 2005, over 625 million microbiological tests were conducted in the food processing sector alone. The market value of these tests were over $1.65 billion dollars U.S.

The food sector is the largest within the industrial microbiology market, representing close to 50% of the total market share.

From 1998 to 2004, this market sector has seen significant growth in microbiological testing with an annual average growth rate of 9.2%.

According to the Food Micro Report (2005), the growth rate has normalized to  6.8%.

The short-term increase in annual growth rates between 1988 and 2004 is attributed to the one time plant-wide audits done to document potential pathogen issues( under the HACCP program). Now the growth rates have returned to a more sustainable level.

The 2005 Food Micro Report projects that the worldwide food microbiology testing market will grow to 822.8 million tests in 2010 with a market value of $2.4 billion. This represents an average annual growth rate of 5.6%.