About Matís

Matís ltd. - Icelandic Food and Biotech R&D

Matis ltd. is an Icelandic Food and Biotech R&D institute founded in 2007 following the merger of three former public food research institutes: The Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories (IFL), an independent food research institute; MATRA, a joint venture of IceTec and the Agricultural Research Institute and the research division of the Environment and Food Agency.

Matis is an independent research institute with 100 percent governmental ownership. The total turnover in 2010 was about $USD 10.4 million working capital, of which 38% is coming from the Icelandic Government.  Matis is located in 9 cities or towns around Iceland. Matís has about 100 employees and about 21 has a Ph.D degree.  Matis employees are many of Iceland‘s most competent scientists in the field of food technology, food research and biotechnology; food scientists, chemists, biologists, engineers and fisheries scientists. Several of Matís employees have a part-time position at universities in Iceland and about 14 PhD students and many M.Sc students are doing their research at Matis and working on their theses in cooperation with the industry in Iceland and abroad.

Matis is working in research and development for the food industry, fisheries and aquaculture. Matis focuses on innovation in food and biotechnology, various services in the food industry in Iceland and abroad and to increase safety and quality of food products.

Matis‘ vision is to increase the value of food processing and food production, through research, development, dissemination of knowledge and consultancy, as well as to ensure the safety and quality of food and feed products.

Matis specialized fields include traceability, genotyping, biotechnology, processing technology, enzyme, physical and chemical  properties of food, quality and safety of aquatic and marine catches, feed technology for aquaculture and environmental research.

Matis‘ assignments are focused on:

• Analysis and Consulting
• Biotechnology and Biomolecules
• Food Safety, Environment and Genetics
  
• Innovation and Consumers
• Value Chain, Processing and Aquaculture

Matis‘ assignments include:

• Product development
• Food quality and safety
  
• Aquaculture
• Processing technology
• Traceability
• Supply management
• Biotechnology
• Genetics

Matis (and former units) has participated in numerous EU funded projects including TraceFish (QLRT-1999-30164; www.tracefish.net/), FQLM (FAIR CT98-4174), QIMIT (FAIR-FA-S2-9063), CODLIGHT TECH (COOP-CT-2006-032859; www.codlight-tech.com/), EuroFIR (FP6-CT-2005-513944; www.eurofir.net/), QALIBRA (FOOD-CT-2006-022957; http://www.qalibra.eu/), SeafoodPlus (FP6-506359; www.seafoodplus.org/), CHILL-ON (FP6-0116333-2), Fish and Chips (GOCE-CT-2003-505491; www.fish-and-chips.uni-bremen.de/), Marine Genomics Europe (FP6-505403; www.marine-genomics-europe.org/) and SalseaMerge (FP7-212529) in cooperation with Freshwater Fisheries of Iceland.

Matis also operates Prokaria, a private biotechnology company and is a shareholder in Iceprotein, a protein production company, located in Saudarkrokur, northern part of Iceland.