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LuminUltra Takes Its Bugcount Microbial Tests to Turkey

The Fredericton microbial-testing company has signed Istanbul-based OLSO as a distributor, giving Turkish industrial customers local access to its Bugcount ATP tests and analyzer.

Closing card: the Luminultra logo above a New Brunswick outline pinned at Fredericton, linked by an arc to an outline of Turkey pinned at Istanbul, beside a handheld Bugcount analyzer reading under five minutes

Fredericton's LuminUltra has a new distributor in Turkey. The company announced on Oct. 19 that Istanbul-based OLSO will sell and support its microbial monitoring products across the country, including the Bugcount product line.

The deal gives Turkish customers a local source for tests LuminUltra makes and ships from New Brunswick, along with application help and after-sales support from OLSO. LuminUltra did not disclose financial terms.

What OLSO brings

OLSO specializes in laboratory and process analytical solutions. According to LuminUltra's release, it supports customers in petrochemicals, energy, water and wastewater, pharmaceuticals, food, environmental work and manufacturing, and handles product selection, application evaluation, technical consultancy and after-sales support. OLSO's own website, which gives an address in Esenyurt, Istanbul, already lists LuminUltra among the brands it represents.

"Identifying and collaborating with strong local partners is an important part of how we bring Luminultra's solutions to more industries around the world," said John Geisler, LuminUltra's vice-president, commercial. "OLSO brings the technical expertise, market knowledge and customer relationships that can help us make rapid microbial monitoring more accessible across Turkey."

What Bugcount measures

Bugcount tests measure adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy molecule found in living cells, as a proxy for how much microbial activity is in a sample. LuminUltra says its 2nd Generation ATP chemistry gives results in under five minutes, while conventional culture-based methods can take days. The release says the faster reading helps teams evaluate treatment effectiveness and respond to changing conditions before problems escalate.

The newest piece of hardware is the Bugcount analyzer, which LuminUltra launched on March 16. It succeeds the company's PhotonMaster luminometer. The portable reader has a sunlight-readable screen and a battery meant to last a full shift, works with the Bugcount test kits, and sends results to Relay, LuminUltra's software platform for storing and sharing test data.

A Fredericton exporter

LuminUltra traces its work to 1995, when it began research and field validation of its ATP technology for wastewater, and was incorporated in 2003, according to its company history. Its global headquarters and manufacturing centre are in Fredericton, with a research and development lab in Baltimore. The company says it serves customers in more than 80 countries and is backed by XPV Water Partners, a water-focused private equity investor it partnered with in the 2015-2019 period.

Earlier distributor networks covered Europe, North America, India, China and Australia. The company has grown partly by acquisition, buying Instant Labs, aqua-tools' rapid microbial solutions division, Mastiline, Source Molecular, Impact Microbiology Services, LifeCheck and GL Biocontrol. During the pandemic it supplied the Government of Canada with clinical testing reagents for 500,000 COVID-19 tests a week, which we covered in LuminUltra's second act. Water Canada named it Water Company of the Year in 2021.

What the release leaves out

The announcement does not say how many Turkish customers OLSO already serves with LuminUltra products, which product lines beyond Bugcount it will carry, or whether the agreement is exclusive.

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