Dear Agri-Neo Stakeholders,
It has been a challenging few weeks for us all, with turbulent times ahead expected for our families, communities, and businesses. With COVID-19 infecting many across the world, our hearts go out to those that are impacted the most.
At Agri-Neo, we are doing our part to advance our mission of helping safely feed the world, while dealing with this new reality. Since food safety is an ‘essential service’ for the food supply chain, we have a responsibility to continue to supply our products and provide a high level of service to our customers. We do this while safeguarding the health and safety of our team under the supervision of our Joint Health & Safety Committee (JHSC). We would like to thank our entire team for their tremendous efforts that we describe below that ensures all our stakeholders’ interests are protected during this time.
Continue to supply our products and provide a high level of service to our customers
We have a number of strategic supply partners throughout the U.S. and Canada for our solution and equipment products, so we are able to fulfill orders without disruption. To mitigate our supply risk, we have built a buffer with additional inventory of our solutions. Our team also remains on call to work remotely to troubleshoot any issues or questions for our customers. We understand it is essential for our customers to be operational during this time given food shortages across the supply chain. We will be there to support them with our solutions and services.
Protect the health and safety of our team, and help flatten the curve to stop the spread of COVID-19
Our team has been largely working from home since March 13th. This has not hampered our ability to supply and service our customers. Right now, we have essential projects being done in our lab and pilot plant by select people that are under the direction of our Joint Health & Safety Committee (JHSC). When we do go back to the office, we will phasing-in our people over time.
This will be a challenging time for everyone, and we want to make sure we deliver for our customers while keeping our team healthy and safe. We are also developing plans that will allow us to emerge from this period as a stronger company.
Deepen our partnerships with our banks to help our customers
We have a number of banking partners that are working with us to provide financing for our company and our customers during this time. For example, Scotiabank has been our bank of choice for many years, and we recently agreed to purchase order financing for our Neo-Pure Food Safety Systems to finance system orders from new and existing customers.
Continue essential testing on almonds at the University of Guelph
We have been partnering with the Agriculture and Food Laboratory (AFL) at the University of Guelph to conduct testing on almonds for many years. We are targeting a “proof of concept” approval for Neo-Pure on almonds in Q3 2020 from the Almond Board of California (ABC). We are in constant contact with ABC and have aligned on specific tests that need to be conducted that are still underway. Once we receive approval, we can have our existing customers treat almonds after they get their individual sites approved. We can also ship our first almond only systems to California for customers that have signed up and are awaiting this approval.
Continue essential testing on other foods at local customers and at our site
We continue to work closely with local customers who are operating to validate more foods in our new continuous system. One example is raw peanuts that are currently being validated and will be available for Neo-Pure to new and existing customers shortly. To our customers, please continue to send us your food for testing. We will soon be doing testing at our site again and validating more foods.
Sign up new customers and ship them systems
We recently shipped another Neo-Pure Food Safety System to a new customer in the US. We have signed up new customers for both Neo-Pure and Neo-Temper products as well and are in negotiations with prospective customers to buy our Neo-Pure Food Safety System after their recent visits. System shipments will continue in Q2 and beyond with the inventory we have already secured. Once travel restrictions are lifted, Neo-Temper mill validations will resume, as well as customer visits to Agri-Neo to see the Neo-Pure Food Safety System.
Upgrade our facility for demonstrations of our Neo-Pure Food Safety System
By the end of April, we will have upgraded our facility with renovations that are already underway. This renovation will create a “showroom” where our Neo-Pure Food System is showcased to prospective customers so they can see how it would look and operate in their facility. These renovations are being done by a small group of contractors in a safe fashion with social distancing, and they are being monitored by our Joint Health & Safety Committee (JHSC).
We hope these actions provide context on how we are doing, and how we will continue to act in the best interests for all our stakeholders. We are fortunate to have such a great team of people, a strong customer base delivering essential food products in this time of need, and a set of supportive banking partners and shareholders to make Agri-Neo succeed in these turbulent times. Agri-Neo is on a mission to help safely feed the world, and we believe even more in this guiding principle during this time of need.
If you would like to reach out to check-in, ask questions, or provide feedback, feel free to do so at nicholas.dillon@agri-neo.com or call at 1-647-448-2382.
Take care,
Nick Dillon
CEO, Agri-Neo
