All your agar essentials

We take care of all your agar media needs so you can rely on a consistent, predictable source for your bacterial, yeast, and fungal growth. 

 

With our fully customizable pre-poured agar plates, flexible formats, and fast delivery, we can meet the needs of your specific application.

 
EXPLORE OUR PLATES Learn how we ensure growth performance FAQs
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Agar plates in various colors and formats

Get to know our agar plates

Explore our wide variety of agar media types, ranging from LB to Tryptic Soy to synthetically defined. We offer ready-to-use, pre-poured plates with additives—like carbenicillin, ampicillin, kanamycin, X-Gal, and IPTG—already included.

 

With custom antibiotic formulations, animal-free options, and our scientific expertise, we can help you overcome growth challenges so you get the reliable results you need to move your science forward.

Flexible formats

All shapes and sizes

Our pre-poured plate formats range from standard round 100 mm plates to multi-well oblong plates for high-throughput robotic applications and gridded contact plates for environmental monitoring. We also offer agar in tubes or dispensed into bottles to save on storage.

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ADD OUR EXPERTISE TO YOUR TEAM

 

Eliminate a variable in

your experiments

 

Our comprehensive quality control system is designed for your peace of mind. Incoming raw materials are screened for growth performance before being implemented on the floor, and final formulations are tested for consistency so you get reliable results from first plate to last in every batch.

We have developed a breadth of tests for our customers' unique applications, handpicking 27 bacterial and 8 fungal strains to establish proprietary predictive growth patterns that include a variety of antibiotic combinations. We perform tests daily, inspecting growth patterns for efficiency and consistency.

We screen the first and last plates in every lot for sterility and performance to help ensure batch-to-batch consistency so you get reproducible results.

We have refined our products and testing to make sure you get optimal shelf life when it gets to your lab. We can perform custom stability testing for your unique storage conditions.

We maintain retention samples for the lifespan of the product, so we can continually test its integrity.

From formulation to format, quality control testing, documentation, and labeling, we can manufacture exactly what you need in weeks, not months.

 

We also offer Express•Tek℠ Production services to further expedite your turnaround with pre-ordered raw materials, prioritized manufacturing, and overnight shipping. With this unique service, we'll get your custom formulation into production in days instead of weeks, guaranteed.

Don’t see what you’re looking for?
Get a custom solution made to your specifications

Ask our experts about our custom agar media options, including animal-free materials, different carbon sources, additives (IPTG, X-Gal), and a variety of antibiotic types and concentrations.

 

We can combine up to five antibiotics in a single agar plate, and we can also use materials that you provide to make plates, bringing our rigorous quality control process to your proprietary products, including implementing unique strains based on your application.
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Did you know?

Our standard 100 mm round pre-poured plates come in easy-dispense sleeves developed by our engineers to maintain sterility.

 

The sleeves minimize environmental exposure as you dispense your plates, and are heat shrink-wrapped for added protection. 

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Explore our other products

All our products are fully customizable, from formulation to format to fill volume. Our experts can help find the ideal solution for your application and efficiently manufacture your custom product.

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Frequently asked questions

You can find answers here for our most commonly asked questions. If you don't find the information you are looking for, get in touch with our team. We're here to help.

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Our plates are tested for sterility and selective growth using a select panel of bacterial and fungal strains. We conduct tests daily, inspecting growth patterns for efficiency and consistency. By default, we test 27 bacterial and 8 fungal strains, but the exact number of strains depends on the type of agar plates. We can also incorporate additional strains for testing by request.

We sterilize our agar plates using an autoclave.

We adhere to industry standards for sterility testing. This involves incubating agar plates under suitable conditions to ensure there is no microbial growth. A plate is considered to “pass" when no microbial growth is observed after the specified incubation period.

We offer specialized anaerobic agar plates designed for the cultivation of anaerobic bacteria. These plates should be incubated in anaerobic conditions or within an appropriate anaerobic chamber. Our anaerobic agar plates are tested by streaking anaerobic strains in addition to our standard growth performance testing.

Absolutely! You can quickly find and download the COA for your product here using the lot number. You can also request a COA using our live chat or by sending an email to info@teknova.com. You'll find detailed information about the product in the COA, including quality control results for the specific lot.

We recommend following the storage conditions specified on the Certificate of Analysis (COA) or product label. Using different storage conditions can affect the performance of the plates. It's important to note that plates should not be frozen, but when indicated, many plates can be safely stored in the refrigerator without any adverse impact on performance.

Product formulation information can be easily found on our product pages. You can also request it using our live chat, by sending an email to info@teknova.com, or by calling us at 1.800.209.4488.

Yes! We offer a range of agar plates that can be used for environmental monitoring. Whether you’re assessing water quality, monitoring air quality, ensuring food safety, or conducting environmental surveillance, we offer ready-made and custom agar plates to meet your needs.

Our plates are very versatile and can be customized with additives to meet your requirements. If you have any questions get in touch with our team. We’re here to help you find the ideal solution for your specific application.

 

We offer some culture media formulations in dehydrated form. You can find our dry powder products here.

We have a wide selection of off-the-shelf liquid culture media in various formulations and formats, and can also customize any of our products to meet your needs. Explore our liquid culture media or start a custom order. 

You may notice color variations in our broths and agar plates because of the inherent characteristics of the raw materials used in these products. Rest assured that variations in color do not impact the effectiveness or reliability of the product. All our products undergo thorough testing for growth performance before they are released to ensure consistent quality.  

Our packaging options include vacuum-sealing to maintain sterility during shipping and storage. In addition, our standard 100 mm round pre-poured plates come in our proprietary easy-dispense Teknova sleeves. These are designed to maintain sterility by minimizing environmental exposure as the plates are dispensed, and they are heat shrink-wrapped for added protection.

Our team of scientists, quality control experts, and manufacturing specialists is always here to help troubleshoot if you have any issues using our plates. Get in touch with us at info@teknova.com, by live chat, or by calling us at 1.800.209.4488.