PRESS RELEASE

ConAgra Foods Inc., adopts Pathatrix® the world leading technology from Matrix MicroScience

MATRIX MicroScience Inc., (Golden, CO) has announced that ConAgra Foods Inc., one the world's leading food companies has adopted the Pathatrix® technology as an integral part of its comprehensive food safety program. After an extensive evaluation conducted by ConAgra's expert food safety team based in Omaha, NE the Pathatrix® system has been deployed at several key sites within ConAgra.

Dr. Paul A. Hall, Global VP of Food Safety for ConAgra Foods Inc., comments that "The Pathatrix® system is the only commercially available system successfully addressing the up-front selection and concentration of target organisms. The Pathatrix® system is extremely flexible in that it is compatible with a number of existing rapid microbiological methods, and, when applied in a sample pooling format, allows for higher sample throughput, leading to significant cost savings, without any compromise in sensitivity. The ability to gain rapid results using the Pathatrix® technology is critical in the use of positive release programs. ConAgra is always striving to use the best available technology in its food safety programs and Pathatrix® is a perfect addition to this strategy"

Con Agra Foods, Inc
ConAgra Foods, Inc. (NYSE:CAG), is one of North America's leading packaged food companies, serving grocery retailers, as well as restaurants and other foodservice establishments. Popular ConAgra Foods consumer brands include: Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Egg Beaters, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, Reddi-wip, PAM and many others. For more information, please visit www.conagrafoods.com

Matrix MicroScience

Matrix MicroScience

Background Notes for Editors

1. PATHATRIX - Launched in 2002, the PATHATRIX system requires less than two minutes hands-on time per test and utilises a proven technology, which can be adopted in any microbiology laboratory, with the minimum of retraining. Viable cultures are produced during the test allowing full and detailed analysis of any positive results.

PATHATRIX is unique in that it is the only microbial detection system that can analyse the entire 225ml + 25g sample simultaneously by re-circulating the sample through a "capture phase" where the antibody coated magnetic beads are immobilised.

A standard 25g food sample is homogenised with 225ml of growth media in a stomacher. PATHATRIX capture reagent, which consists of antibody coated magnetic particles specific to the target pathogen, are then added directly to the sample. The sample is loaded onto the PATHATRIX workstation using a Matrix proprietary consumable pack, connecting the sample to the circulatory system in preparation for the Capture-Culture step.

Once loaded, the PATHATRIX workstation is typically pre-programmed to run for 30 minutes at the desired incubation temperature. Upon completion of the run, the target microorganisms are bound onto the phase by the capture reagent. Residual debris and non-specific binding are removed during a single wash step.

The capture phase is disconnected from the system and the capture reagent/pathogen complexes are eluted by washing the phase into a vessel. The captured pathogen complexes are then concentrated into a small volume. The sample can be plated directly onto selective media and incubated overnight for visualization the following morning or be directly analyzed by PCR for a very rapid result.

There are a variety of PATHATRIX tests that enable results to be obtained within as little as 5hrs to 24hrs from point of sample to result.

2. Pathatrix Pooling

PATHATRIX pooling involves taking 50ml sub-samples from 5 individual samples, pooling them to create a 250ml wet composite sample which can then be analyzed by a single PATHATRIX run (see figure below). If the sample is "positive" the original individual samples can be re-tested separately by PATHATRIX to determine which sample(s) is/are positive. However if the wet composite sample is shown to be negative no further analysis of the 5 original samples is required. Thus the PATHATRIX pooling approach can be used as a rapid and cost effective screen for all samples.