MDG News and Updates

Bacillus bacteria are common in microbial cleaning ingredients, including ours at MDG. They are widely used because of their ability to combat typical pain points in the Industrial and Institutional (I&I) cleaning market. But what about these tiny organisms makes them so effective, and how can you use their versatility to expand and strengthen your product lines? Why are Bacillus effective in cleaning products? Bacillus-based ingredients have a few key qualities that make them useful additions to cleaning products: They use the components of odor-causing compounds and stains as food. Bacillus consume substances like fats, oils, and grease (FOG), carbohydrates, proteins, using them as food and removing them from the application site. Whether your product is meant to clean a grease trap in an industrial kitchen or a portable toilet in an RV, a Bacillus ingredient can help. They are live microorganisms, which means they grow and multiply. This allows them to continue to work hours or even days after application, reducing the need for frequent application. They produce beneficial enzymes like protease, lipase, and amylase to help break down their food sources into smaller molecules. This breakdown makes it easier for both Bacillus and an application site’s beneficial native […]

Anaerobic digesters are vital components of many wastewater treatment plants, and problems that affect their operation can be detrimental to the facility’s efficiency. Certain issues may even cause a complete shutdown of digester systems, and it can sometimes take months to get them up and running again. With so much at stake, you need to provide your customers with a solution that’s designed to support and maintain healthy anaerobic digester functions. Read on to learn more about the problems your customers may face when operating digesters and how you can help them with MDG’s new product, Biotifx® AN. What causes problems in anaerobic digesters? There are several reasons why a digester system might not be operating at full capacity: Nutrient imbalances: Micronutrients are necessary in anaerobic digesters to encourage optimal microbial activity. If they aren’t present in the right amounts, both treatment speed and effectiveness decrease. High hydrogen sulfide (H2S) levels: Elevated H2S production not only affects the digester over time due to corrosion and costs around scrubbing H2S from methane, but also causes other problems like exceeding governmental regulatory limits on H2 Poor digestion rate of organic material: When the system is not digesting organic material (i.e., long-chain and […]

Typically, one of the first questions a custom fermentation customer will ask us is how quickly we can get them to economical commercial production. Our years of experience tell us that if the customer can get their strain to two billion (2B) CFU/ml in a standard media such as trypticase soy broth (TSB), we tend to be able to get them to commercial production in eight to twelve weeks. However, if the customer is in the 107 or 108 CFU/ml range in this quick test, we know we have a good amount of work ahead of us and scale-up may take a while. Although we have brought many strains with lower than 2B CFU/ml yield to a point of economic feasibility, you can bet the production timeline was quite a bit longer. Now, we know the last thing a customer wants to hear is that production yields may delay or even prevent commercialization altogether. To prevent this, we highly recommend adding a simple 2B TSB screen into your earlier process. Planning Ahead Right now, many scientists are trying to find the perfect strain for their application. They will spend months, if not years, screening their Bacillus libraries, seeking desired attributes […]

Odor reduction and prevention are essential to maintaining cleanliness in industrial and institutional applications. In our upcoming webinar, we will dive into the science behind how microbial-based cleaners mitigate odors and provide long-term solutions for your customers. Hear from Jennifer Cray, our Technical Support Lead, as she discusses a few sources of unpleasant smells and where they can appear, as well as how Bacillus helps combat odors in an environmentally safer, economical way. Join us and our IIC expert on Wednesday, November 13, at 2:00 PM CST as she presents “Overcoming Odors with Microbial Cleaning Products”. Register for free today to secure your spot!

Odors are everywhere: from tiled surfaces to carpets, from portable toilets to pet waste. When you’re creating microbial products to combat odors, you want to offer solutions specific to the challenges your customers are facing. This means diving into the “science behind the stink” and understanding the components that make up different types of unpleasant smells. Let’s look at five major contributors and the types of odors they tend to produce:   Volatile fatty acids (VFAs): VFAs are organic acids produced by the microbial metabolism of biomass and food waste, such as dietary fiber, starch, protein, and amino acids. VFAs commonly associated with odor include short-chain fatty acids such as acetic, propionic, and butyric acids, as well as C5–C7-chain fatty acids such as valeric, caproic, and capric acid. Each VFA has its own distinct smell. Valeric and butyric acids, for example, are commonly associated with vomit odor.   Phenols and indoles: Phenols and indoles are produced by the metabolism of amino acids and emit very intense smells. One of these compounds, 3-methyl indole (also known as skatole), is found in pet and livestock feces and carries an intense, pungent feces odor.   Sulfur-containing compounds: Anaerobic sulfate reduction by bacteria and […]

We are proud to have been recognized as a finalist for the 2024 Wisconsin Innovation Awards! This annual award is given to companies and individuals across multiple business sectors who are developing groundbreaking ideas and driving innovation in the state of Wisconsin. One of MDG’s many innovation pipelines is dedicated to identifying microbial strains for therapeutic use in probiotics. We use our extensive knowledge of microbial genomics alongside testing methods like in vivo functional screening to discover probiotics that have tangible and clear benefits in the human body. “Each person’s microbiome is unique, which makes developing effective probiotic therapies a complex challenge,” says Kyle Leistikow, our CORE Innovation–Research Manager. “This innovation enables us to more precisely identify and evaluate probiotic strains with specific, beneficial effects—helping us unlock the potential of these tiny microbes to address big health problems.” Check out the video below to hear how MDG’s innovation is helping us fulfill our mission to Feed, Clean, Save the World.

At MDG, our foundation is Real Science. We have over twenty years of experience creating Bacillus-based solutions for our customers across various markets, and we stand behind the ingredients we produce. As the Human Health market grows, our emphasis on research and innovation makes us a trusted partner in probiotic ingredients for suppliers and manufacturers in the human health space. Read on to learn about our capabilities and discover how you can grow your business with our partnership. Strain Discovery and R&D Our microbiologists have generated libraries of over ten thousand isolated Bacillus strains that continue to grow as we innovate. Using various techniques that allow us to characterize strains both functionally and genomically, we conduct thorough screening to find strains with the best performance attributes for your probiotic product. With ongoing clinical trials, we’re keeping safety and ingredient effectiveness top of mind as we research, test, and validate. Manufacturing Processes MDG’s production facilities follow Good Manufacturing Practices and are FSMA-compliant and HACCP-certified for food and feed production. We emphasize strain purity and efficient, economic scale-up of your probiotic ingredients. Every aspect of our process ensures that the final product includes the intended strains in the specified ratios, resulting in […]

We apply our Trusted Process to everything we do, and we customize the individual steps for each market we work in. In the human health market, for example, the process of developing and manufacturing high-quality probiotic ingredients may look different from our workflows in other markets we serve, but it is still backed by our promises to our partners. Let’s walk through how we manufacture our Bacillus ingredients for Human Health.   Processing Probiotic Cultures Once a strain has been fermented, scaled up, and dried, the powder processing can begin. At MDG, this starts in a food-grade room, where the powdered Bacillus culture is milled and added to a stainless-steel intermediate bulk container, or IBC. When the IBC is full, it is fitted with a lid that has paddles attached to help mix the culture effectively in the next step.   Our production team then moves the IBC to the blending machine, which lifts and rotates the container, blending it effectively with the help of the paddle lid. This portion of the process is called homogenization, and it is an important step to ensure that the final product’s bacterial count is consistent. After the mixing is complete, the IBC is […]

At MDG, we are dedicated to helping you scale up your bacterial ingredients efficiently and economically so you can find success in your microbial product lines. The process of formulating those product lines can include quite a few steps. You need to identify your desired bacterial strain, grow that strain, and manufacture it at the scale necessary for sales to begin. In order to meet your deadlines, you’ll want to contact and form a relationship with your custom fermentation partner early. We’ve expanded our growing capabilities—keep reading to explore a few things to consider before reserving space. How Long Will It Take to Grow? Factors to Consider A variety of factors can impact the growing and manufacturing timeline of your strain. These include: Species: While we pride ourselves on being Bacillus experts, we also grow non-Bacillus bacterial strains for our customers. Some of these strains can be harder to grow than others, meaning our microbiologists and production experts may need some extra time to determine the best growth and scale-up strategy. Media: At MDG, we test your strain on multiple media to find the best environment for growth. This also allows us to dedicate time to accommodate specific media requests […]

As a manufacturer of industrial and institutional cleaning solutions, you have a lot to think about when creating your product lines. Using components that clean effectively, meet your customers’ needs, and drive your success in the marketplace is important, and microbial ingredients can be a great way to achieve those goals. However, there are a lot of options you can choose from when formulating, including traditionally used chemicals. So why choose microbial ingredients above the rest? Reason #1: Environmental Friendliness The bacteria in microbial ingredients work to reduce odors and solids buildup by using organic material and odor-causing compounds that are present in the system as a food source. By taking in nutrients essential for their growth, the bacteria can multiply, increasing treatment effectiveness. Microbial ingredients also work with a system’s native bacteria to mitigate buildup and odor issues. They don’t overtake a system; instead, these ingredients enhance the environment and encourage the growth of beneficial organisms to continue the effects of treatment after the initial application. Chemical cleaners, however, do not enrich a system’s microbial population like bacterial ingredients do. They sometimes reduce the population of beneficial bacteria as well as the odor-causing bacteria they’re meant to target, which […]