These are the trends for 2023 in laboratories

The continued staff shortage and the desire to become more sustainable will be important themes within the laboratory sector in 2023. This is noticed by Sanne Driessen of Led Techno, one of the largest suppliers of laboratory supplies in the Benelux. Driessen tells more about it in this blog.

Fast and efficient processes

One of the two trends of 2023 is automation. “It is a major challenge for many companies to find enough suitable staff. Especially in the laboratory world, where specific knowledge is needed,” Driessen begins. “That is why many companies choose to automate. That is an investment, but it pays off in the long term: the work takes less time and fewer staff are needed.

Thanks to automation, processes within laboratories become better and more efficient. Driessen mentions an incubator with an integrated colony counter as an example: “In the past, a laboratory technician would place petri dishes in an incubator, take them out and manually count the number of colonies growing in the petri dishes. This is now an automated process: The new incubator (Scan Station) now counts this itself. This takes less time and energy.”

Sustainable trends

In addition to automation, sustainability is a spearhead for laboratories. “More and more organizations are taking steps to be more aware of the environment and its costs. This results in less waste, less overhead costs, less storage and less plastic,” says Driessen.

Driessen shows an environmentally conscious innovation: a petri film instead of a petri dish. She explains: “Many laboratories still use Petri dishes: round plastic containers in which bacteria and fungi are grown in agar for analysis. But this process can be more sustainable. That is why we offer petri films: a flat plate that is largely made of cardboard and a small percentage of plastic. This means you use much less plastic and you have less waste, because such a thin plate is smaller than a bowl. It also takes up much less space. Both for storage and in an incubator.

Future-oriented

Driessen's goal? “Unburdening laboratories. And we want to bring this to the attention of as many companies as possible.” That is why Led Techno will be at the LabNL event in September to tell more about all the innovations.

Register now free of charge for a visit to LabNL.