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VOL. 19, NO. 7
April 26, 2002
Strange stuff, but edible
Mionix: McDonald’s testing acid’s effect on ground beef
CELIA LAMB / STAFF WRITER
Imagine a colorless liquid that’s so acidic it corrodes metal and kills bacteria but doesn’t burn
your skin. Sounds like science fiction, but Mionix
Corporation of Rocklin has already begun selling
it as a food safety treatment.
“It’s the strangest stuff on the planet,” said David
Lewis, a University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire chemistry professor who has been working with the
company for about two years, checking the
company’s patent work for scientific accuracy.
“The biological properties are just weird.”
It’s so strange, in fact, that he hasn’t yet figured
out the liquid’s chemical structure. Mionix sells
the liquid under the trademark Safe 2 O, but its
chemical name is acidic calcium sulfate. Because
it’s made out of chemicals that are generally recognized as safe, it received approval as a food
additive from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in November, and has been used in pie
filling, potatoes and pesto sauces.
Mionix hopes to make its first really big break in
the meat market. Major companies like Pilgrim’s
Pride and McDonald’s Corp. have been exploring
ways to use Safe2O. Mionix has signed a letter of
intent to form a joint venture with United Kingdombased BOC Gases, which would produce and sell
Mionix products in the beef and poultry markets.
The deal is conditional on USDA approval of
Safe2O. That could happen sometime in the next
six months, said Dennis Smithyman, BOC Gases’
vice president for global food markets.
Raised $11M, seeks $5M more: Mionix
recently moved to a new location, a 32,000-squarefoot building on Alvis Court in Rocklin that
includes offices and a manufacturing plant.
Previously the company had offices and a pilot
manufacturing plant in Roseville for a combined
9,000 square feet.
The predecessor of Mionix was Morningstar
Diagnostics, which developed diagnostic tests for
the food and medical industries, including an
antibody containing test strip on which people
could put samples of hamburger juice to test for
the presence of certain kinds of bacteria. In 1998
the company developed the Safe 2 O technology
and began eyeing the estimated $5 billion U.S.
food safety market.
“The market opportunity for testing was less
than $50 million on the food side,” said Michael
Cunha, Mionix’s chief executive officer. “We found
there was more opportunity in decontaminating
food than there was on the diagnostics side.”
The Morningstar Diagnostics team formed
Mionix and filed its first patent for Safe2O in February 1999. The company raised $11 million from
more than 100 investors in five private placements, and is seeking $5 million more to move
into large-scale marketing and distribution and to
reach profitability.
How it works: Safe2O kills bacteria and molds
on food by lowering the pH to a level that the
bacteria can’t tolerate. Maurice Kemp, Mionix’s
research director, describes Safe 2O as a complex
of dissociated ions made by mixing sulfuric acid,
calcium hydroxide and calcium sulfate using proprietary techniques. An ion is an atom or a group
of atoms with a chemical charge.
The company uses Safe 2 O to make a range of
other products by combining it with different
blends of organic acids.
Most bacteria produce organic acids, like carboxylic acid and lactic acid, as byproducts of
metabolism. Exposing the bacteria to those same
kinds of organic acids blocks the bacteria’s abilities to expel the byproducts and shuts down cellular metabolism. Hydrogen ions from sulfuric acid
flood into the bacteria and kill them.
It’s not clear why Safe2O doesn’t harm the skin
of people and animals or the tissues of plants.
Lewis of the University of Wisconsin and Mionix
research director Maurice Kemp speculate that
calcium ions in Safe2O form complexes with keratin on the skin, creating a barrier to the acids.
Despite the unknowns, Safe 2 O has generated
plenty of interest from potential customers. Ken
Byrd, director of poultry compliance technology
with Pilgrim’s Pride, said he thinks the poultry
industry will embrace it because it’s predicted to
have fewer environmental impacts and therefore
fewer disposal issues than other commonly used
food safety products, like trisodium phosphate.
Safety and environmental damage would be
the usual objections to inventing or promoting
processes such as this one.
“If you’ve got something that does a job more
safely than every other alternative that’s out
there right now,” Lewis asked rhetorically, “do
you sit on it or do you get it out there so people
can use it?”
A U.S. Department of Agriculture study found
that a poultry wash made from Safe 2 O killed
slightly more bacteria on chicken carcasses in a
processing plant than trisodium phosphate. Byrd
said he had talked with researchers at the USDA
who plan to expand their trials of Safe 2O.
“They’ve seen magic potions come and go,”
Byrd said. “They’re excited about this product. I
think that says a lot.”
Markets: Mionix is exploring the use of its products in many different kinds of foods. The company has already been selling Safe 2 O products
for use in pesto sold by the Massachusetts-based
Shaw’s Supermarket chain, twice-baked potatoes
made by the Costco Warehouse supplier Tassos
Epicurean Cuisine Inc. of Michigan, and in pies
DENNIS McCOY / SACRAMENTO BUSINESS JOURNAL
Mionix CEO Michael Cunha with Safe 2 O
made by VICOM, the bakery production division
of Vicorp Restaurants Inc., which owns Baker’s
Square.
Safe2O has no taste or odor, and may improve
the nutritional value of foods by adding calcium,
Cunha, Mionix’s CEO.
Company studies show it can keep shredded
cheese in an unopened package free of mold for
90 days, compared to the typical five days, and
extend the shelf-life of cherry tomatoes by 14 to
21 days.
The company’s biggest thrust is in meatprocessing markets. Smithyman of BOC Gases estimates that Mionix could capture $50 million to
$100 million of a more than $1 billion market for
meat safety.
Though McDonald’s isn’t a customer, it has
been working on research studies with Mionix to
test its effect in ground beef. Their studies have
shown that with the Mionix product, McDonald’s
could safely reduce the amount of time or the
temperature at which it cooks the hamburgers,
potentially producing a juicier burger, cutting
costs and speeding up food preparation at restaurants, Cunha said.
The company is also looking beyond food
safety markets.
“Medical applications, I think, are enormous,”
said Cunha.
The company is investigating ways to use its
products for sanitizing medical instruments and
equipment and potentially even treating wounds.
Mionix could develop a product for cold sterilization in hospitals and clinics, which would be
especially valuable in the Third World where
autoclaves for sterilizing medical instruments
often aren’t available, Cunha said.
The company also hopes to sell the product as
a mold killer. Possible customers include cleaning
product makers and companies that make
wallboard, which sometimes becomes the food of
toxic molds in houses.
Reprinted for web use with permission of the Sacramento Business Journal. ©2002, all rights reserved.