Cultural Methods for Enumeration and Identification of
Clostridium perfringens in Foods
A. Equipment and materials
1. Pipets, 1.0 ml with 0.1 ml graduations, and 10.0 ml with 1.0 ml graduations
2. Colony counter
3. High speed blender, Waring or equivalent, and 1 L glass or metal blender jars
with covers; 1 jar required for each sample
4. Anaerobic jars, BBL GasPak, or Oxoid anaerobic jars equipped with GasPak H2
+ CO2 generator envelopes and catalyst
5. Incubator, 35°C
6. Petri dishes, sterile 15 x 100 mm
7. Platinum loop, 3 mm id
8. Water bath, 46 ± 0.5°C
9. Reversed passive latex agglutination (RPLA) test kit for C. perfringens
enterotoxin (Oxoid USA, Columbia, MD)