Symphony Environmental Technologies plc (LON:SYM) Chief Executive Officer Michael Laurier caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the two year US supply contract, why it’s good for the company and what investors should take away from this news.
Q1: It sounds like great news for Symphony Environmental, how do you feel about the news?
A1: It’s really good news because it’s in one of the world’s biggest markets and, as you can imagine, they use an awful lot of these vitamin supplements and those vitamin supplements are all packed in little plastic containers.
So, it’s a very important step forward for us because most of our business is dealing with flexible plastics i.e. shopping bags, food packaging and even drinking straws but this is one step further on, this is now putting it into a rigid product.
Q2: Can you tell us more about the launch and how it’ll be good for the company?
A2: This is really really good news for us because globally, it’s going to send a strong message to the markets that have got serious problems with bottles. Of course, we can’t do all the different types of bottles but there’s an awful lot of bottles that we can treat on a global basis and what we’re hoping, particularly in the United States, will open up a new market area for us.
As you can see from our announcement, this has been two years of development work that went into this project so it’s a very important step forward for us.
Q3: So, what should investors take from this news today?
A3: I think what investors can take from this news is really positive.
First of all, it’s a reminder that plastic continues to be a major issue in the world but it’s too difficult to remove it and remove it quickly. It’s a reminder that this is a technology, this company, our investors, our shareholders, future shareholders to look at this company as a proven solution towards to global need to remove plastic that litters the world. That then opens up, and is opening up very very rapidly, a market opportunity way beyond the sales we’re currently creating and as we’ve reported in our update, we have a lot in terms of pipeline, a lot going on with government interaction where they’re looking to change the legislation to resolve the plastic waste problem. This is a technology, proven as I said, been around for four decades and most recently proven again in the marine environment that it’ll biodegrade in the oceans.
So, what do we take away?
We are the only public company focussed on this technology, we are visible, we’re global, we’re fighting the global battle and we’re winning a lot of battles. We feel that going forward, shareholders should be comfortable that Symphony Environmental is in the right sector at the right time.
