<< Return to News

The ONE Thing

I love the scene in City Slickers where Jack Palance tells Billy Crystal “the secret to life is finding that ONE thing.” Billy asks, “What is that ONE thing?” Jack smiles and says “that’s what you have to find out!” Then Billy has to begin his odyssey to find that ONE thing in his life.

Treating wastewater, optimizing fermentations or solving bioremediation applications is a similar odyssey. We often find adding microbes alone is not enough? There is usually something missing, often just ONE thing missing. You may ask “what is that ONE thing?” I bet you can guess what I’m going to say next? “That’s for you to find out.”

Different from the movie, we aren’t going to pass away and leave you to struggle by yourself. We are here to help you find that ONE missing thing, which is usually different at each site. Sometimes the ONE thing missing is neutral pH, alkalinity, nitrogen, phosphorus, folic acid, cobalt (toxic), or a long list of many other ONE things. In some cases, such as bioremediation or my lawn this summer, the missing piece is water. They key to all of this is not to experiment on the site, but to allow us to do the testing to figure out that ONE thing for you in our lab. We will set up a series of experiments and attempt to uncover that ONE thing to make the natural micro flora and our complementary microbes take off like a rocket. We have seen it many times; the ONE thing is the difference between success and failure.

Leave the odyssey to Homer or Billy! Send us your waste samples and let us find the ONE thing for your customer’s site today.

– Michael R King, Ph.D.

Search Insights
Recently Posted Insights

The Changing Landscape of the Human Health Market in 2025

If you’re a probiotic supplier or manufacturer in the United States, you may be feeling uncertain about the state of the human health market. Unpredictable tariff adjustments and shifting regulatory guidelines on topics like self-affirmed GRAS status are just a couple...

MDG at SIMB 2025: Your Trusted Microbial Contract Manufacturer

Join us at the 2025 Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB) Annual Meeting! We’re exhibiting July 27–30 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. Visit us at Booth #20 to speak with an expert in person and learn more about our capabilities for...

How to Help Your Wastewater Customers Prepare for Winter

The changing of the seasons can have a pronounced effect on wastewater systems, particularly when the weather gets cold. Lower temperatures correspond to a decrease in microbial activity, which slows the treatment process. If you’re looking for a solution for your...

Bacillus: The Smarter Solution for RV Sewage System Treatment

Summer is here, which means your customers might be bringing out their RVs for the first trip of the season. However, even on a carefree camping adventure, RVs need to be maintained, particularly their sewage systems. If you’re looking to add an RV tank treatment to...

Choose Bacillus for Septic System Maintenance

According to the EPA, over 20% of US homes rely on septic systems to treat their wastewater.1 When these systems are not properly maintained, multiple issues can arise, such as backups, odors, and flooding. To offer your customers reliable septic system maintenance...

A Distributor’s Guide to Improving Water Quality

Water quality is crucial for wastewater treatment facility operators to maintain—not only to meet compliance standards for their effluent, but also to keep their systems running smoothly. As experts in helping you monitor and improve this key metric at your customers’...

Transform Your Probiotic Products with BoostBac™

Our mission to Feed, Clean, Save the World focuses on improving human health and diving deep into research and development of Bacillus-based probiotic ingredients. We recently released our new probiotic product, BoostBac™, which positively affects the gut microbiome...

Related News