Multus’ production is Officially ‘Food Safe’ with ISO 22000 Certification

Multus is ISO 22000 certified, making our production process officially food-safe.

This accreditation for the production of cellular agriculture growth media and associated ingredients is a massive step for Multus as an industry supplier. It also signals the potential of cultivated meat as a safe and scalable solution to the challenges of the food sector.

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What is ISO 22000?

ISO food safety management standards exist to hold companies in the food industry to account for the consumers’ well-being by providing safe products. Cultivated meat producers using Multus’ growth media formulations and ingredients can be certain of the high standards of production, eliminating long audit timelines when choosing Multus as supplier.

ISO 22000 provides a layer of reassurance within the global food supply chain, “helping products cross borders and bringing people the food they can trust” (1).

The certification is extremely stringent and verifies Multus’ central commitment to safety and quality.

In this case, the scope of ISO management standards applies to the production of growth media and associated ingredients for cellular agriculture.

The ISO 22000 certification is significant for the development of the industry as a whole, opening the door for more affordable, food-safe ingredients innovation.

Multus’ novel technology supports the development of meat and seafood products that can compete with industrial farming methods.

Our ISO22000-certified production covers:

• Ingredients and formulations
• Growth factors
• Attachment molecules
• Serum replacements

For example, our serum-free growth medium, Proliferum® M, is designed explicitly for large-scale use in the food industry and Multus’ recent ISO22000 certification ensures it is produced according to food-safety production standards.

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What does ISO 22000 mean for Multus?

Talking about the significance of the certification for Multus, Reka Tron (COO) stated:

‘The certification is an essential milestone for Multus, supporting our mission to create food-safe ingredients and enable the sustainable protein transition.

Our products provide affordable solutions to growing real animal products – including meat, seafood, dairy, leather and more – using cells instead of animals. Alternatives on the market today are not designed for the food industry or produced at scale.

The certification validates Multus’ position as a key partner to the cultivated meat industry and its potential to impact the food sector positively.’

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Why is scaling food safe cultivated meat necessary?

Certifications like ISO 22000 provide verification which is invaluable for building trust with consumers and policymakers.

More broadly, in a rapidly growing population, demand for a continuous, reliable supply of meat steadily increases, and the livestock agriculture industry already fails to keep up with demand.

In addition, agriculture single-handedly uses 70% of our agricultural land (2), 50% of our antibiotics, and 27% of our fresh water.

15% of greenhouse gas emissions are caused by this industry alone, more than the entire transport sector.

In financial terms, the global food system is valued annually at US$8 trillion. However, it causes US$12 trillion in negative impacts (like nature loss and carbon emissions).

Such an industry is not sustainable, yet the demand for meat continues.

Multus is dedicated to supporting the emerging cultivated meat industry, which provides a sustainable, cruelty and antibiotic-free solution to these challenges.

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(1) ISO. “ISO 22000 Food Safety Management.” ISO, 2018, www.iso.org/iso-22000-food-safety-management.html. Accessed 10 Nov. 2022.(2)  (2016), Livestock Primary, electronic dataset, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Available from: <http://www.fao.org/‘faostat/en/#data/QL> [Accessed: 16 Apr 2020](3) Ventola CL. The antibiotic resistance crisis: part 1: causes and threats. P T. 2015 Apr;40(4):277-83. PubMed PMID: 25859123; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4378521. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378521/
(4) Hoekstra, A. and Mekonnen, M. (2012). The water footprint of humanity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [online] 109(9), pp.3232-3237. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22331890 [Accessed 30 April 2020].(5) Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, [online] 360(6392), pp.987-992. Available at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987.(6) Alistair Scott/Alamy (2019). Counting the hidden $12-trillion cost of a broken food system. Nature. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03117-y

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