Vegan Microbiology Testing

We are the first UK lab to be UKAS accredited and Vegan Society certified for both batch release (ISO 21149 / ISO 16212) and preservative efficacy testing (ISO 11930) only using vegan consumables.

Traditional microbiology testing utilises standard culture media including broths, agars, and other diluents. Most culture medium contains animal derived products, including tryptones, peptones and casein. These are used as natural sources of nutrients for microorganisms to grow and are commonly derived from enzymatic digestion of milk or meat. This constitutes a problem and is a point of discussion when it comes to the testing of natural and vegan cosmetic products, as it means that the full process to get a vegan product to market still must involve the use of traditional media containing animal-derived ingredients.

However, at Melbec, we pride ourselves on being able to offer our clients a Vegan cosmetics testing solution of this kind, by being able to perform both Preservative Efficacy Testing (PET; ISO 11930) and Batch Release / Quality Control (QC) testing using Vegan alternative culture media.

We have validated all our media alternatives to ensure that it performs comparably to traditional media, alongside meeting the UKAS requirements of ISO 17025.

This means we can offer UKAS accredited testing for clients using Vegan-alternative culture media.