Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and I have worked, studied and lived most of my life in EU. I have graduated from business schools: IMD Lausanne, Switzerland, Solvay school of economics in Brussels. Since 1997 I have been engaged in the food industry in the areas of sales purchasing, production, product and strategy development. I have worked over a decade for Danish Albatros Seafood, serving it’s Eastern European branch as a CEO (2007 -2013) and as a director of commerce (2002- 2007).
Please give our readers an introduction to Peckas Naturodlingar.
Peckas is a leader in industrial aquaponics with its sustainable philosophy modern greenhouses and a complex tehnology, scaled up from Peckas Nygård test facility (20 years of experience) Peckas delivers top quality ecological and organic tomatoes and rainbow trout. Closed loop facility located on a High coast, Sweden consists of 0.8 ha under the roof fish and green houses, vertically integrated fish hatchery and processing, r&d departementet and 0.5 additional ha of aquaponic in run by the year end. Since its production start in feb 2018, Peckas has provided a tremendous capacity growth following sharp growing demand. Product produced in a plastic free packaging, highly appreciated by the customers and distributed via the major retailers- ICA, COOP, Lidl and premium segment retail units around Sweden as well to the HoReCa segment and it continues to conquer the market share. Peckas strategy is provide klimatssmart giftfri mat by building it's own aquaponic production in Sweden and developing a solution to support international players. Therefore Peckas Naturodlingar is focused on two assets currently under development:
Peckas Naturodlingar aquaponic production of tomatoes and rainbow trouts.
Peckas Solutions - development of an artificial intelligence-based control system for industrial aquaponics to help the interested international players growing food in the new generation aquaponics.
1. Peckas Naturodlingar is under 18 months of operations Peckas had provided a fast growing development trajectory expanding the capacity by 150% following sharp demand and apriciation from the customer side . It has achieved a prove of concept, stating that aquaponic can really function well in large industrial scale under a very cold winter and hot summers. Complex aquaponic technology allows savings of more than 95% of the water (compared to traditional cultivation technologies) and allows to utilize all the nutrients of the fish farm in the greenhouse instead of wasting them by releasing them in aquatic environments where they will cause eutrophication and other forms of pollution. Additionally Peckas use no chemicals, pesticides or antibiotics and even its tomato packaging is entirely made of recyclable cardboard. No potentially unsustainable aspect is neglected. The sales from 2 greenhouses are growing from quarter to quarter and the fish sales just begun to contribute too. The facility in Härnösand, with its third part nearly completed is growing in sales and expected to reach full capacity ( appr 35 Msek ) million by 2021-2022. Each of the 3 greenhouses takes approximately 2 years to break even. We steadily deliver the sales growth from the built facilities , while finishing our massive construction and R&D work. We are looking forward for net positive cash flows in 2021 . The aquaponic method is a complex technology that takes time for adjustments and learning, but it let us stay ahead of the game for food tech revolution
2. Peckas R&D and Peckas Intelligent Control System (PICS) is development project by Peckas Solution launched to meet an increased demand and interest to thr aquaponuc method from the international customers. It is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms such as neural networks and its aim is to detect the patterns of aquaponics at all level of complexity to control and analyze the production both in the greenhouse and in the fish farm simultaneously and in synergy.Thanks to the intrinsic features of neural networks, this control system trains continuosly on the facility’s data and evolves accordingly getting better and better performances with time.
Moreover thanks to transfer learning techniques any new aquaponic industry using PICS will take advantage of the data collected at Peckas and vice versa.
Elena Petukhovskaya, VD
Peckas Naturodlingar is currently raising 15MSEK in a rights issue. How are you going to use this money?
The Offering will finance the Härnösand facility final stage of development including packing and logistic department constructing, visit center, patent work and the capital untill build facility gets into full capacity. A part of the money is going to be used by Peckas Solution for energy optimization solutions that are also subsidized by the region and energy myndigheten.
How does your competition look like and what do you do better/differently than your peers?
Our product was very well received by the customer and the prices were accepted . There are a lot of good companies that are trying to contribute to the sustainable or local food growing movement. But so far we see our company a bit outside of competition with our sustainable, organic and local approach met in one product. When we are on the way to full capacity we can not meet the growing demand and complettly sold out in our production.
We are very much looking forward to full capacity in our Härnösand facility and further expansion as well as to come out with solution and service provider to learn the other players to grow food in sustainable way
What is the size of Peckas Naturodlingars potential market?
Sweden ranks first in the EU in consumption of organic foods, leads the way in recycling drinks cans and bottles, and gets the highest share of its energy from renewable sources. In Europe, where the organic food market is growing by 5-7 percent a year, Sweden ranks at the top of the green shoppers list. A study by the European Commission found that 40 percent of Swedes had purchased an eco-labeled item in the past month, which is more often than the European average. In whole EU and especially in Sweden consumer behaviour continues to shift towards the healthy local and sustainable food. Local and Ecological food consumption in Sweden has quadruple in the last 10 years continuing its growing trend and we see it at Peckas too, yet the local food production is at the very beginning. Like the % of the local tomatoes is 13% in Sweden vs 85% in Finland , so it gives a good chance for the local companies to support the growth.
Our market for Pecks tomatoes exceeded all expectations during the first year of sales. Through a combination of sustainable, local and organic tasty product offering a growing loyal customer base and rapidly increasing demand has been quickly developed. Our shareholders, customers and peoples around amazing attitude towards the social responsibility for a healthier planet is a great source of inspiration and energy for us to develop sustainable path in local organic food production.
The great sales potential lays both in geographical and customer development strategies. Among the retail clients Peckas is able to deliver to appr 8% of COOP and ICA in Sweden and 85% of Lidl,, but the requests are coming from the new clients all over the country every day. The interest for more of Peckas product is really great and it gives us a good opportunity to build more as we proceed towards our 10 Ha greenhouse strategy of healthy sustainable local tomatoes in Sweden. 10 Ha represents 5% of tomato market .
The other market that Peckas is a sustainable food solution provision . -development of an artificial intelligence-based control system for industrial aquaponics to help the interested international players growing food in the new generation aquaponics. We see the system solution provision is a major source of revenue in 10 years time
According to you, why is buying shares in Peckas Naturodlingar a good investment?
We now see scope for potentially raising aquaponic sustainable local food . Being in Sweden, EU leader in sustainable trends gives us a good market position. it’s not enough just do the business, nowadays . To make business with purpose that’s what became matters for the customer .
In a very short time company has proved that aquaponic can work in industrial scale in different type of a climate . Peckas now is a modern facility with almost a hectare for the super tasty l tomatoes and rainbow trout, vertically integrated hatchery , delivery to the major national retail and HoreCa . Peckas daughter company-Peckas Solution is an R&D project to develop a system for sustainable growing for the other players on international market . Peckas aquaponic system is the future way of sustainable food production , so if you want to be ahead of the game invest in Peckas
Finally, what is your long-term vision for Peckas Naturodlingar? Where do you see the company 5 years from now?
By then we should have proved the excellence of the aquaponic growing both commercially and from a sustainability perspective. We see ourselves established in Stockholm with larger production facility (5 Ha) and , then, at our position as a world leader in aquaponic growing, will spread our technology in other parts of the world with our system solution. We now look forward to reaching full capacity and delivering healthy food in the future with Peckas modern aquaponic method that we believe will be a shift of a paradigma in the future food production where we will be the leader of the evolution in our industry.
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Erbjudandet i sammandrag
Teckningskurs: 10 kronor per aktie
Teckningstid: 1 oktober - 15 oktober 2019
Emissionsvolym: 14,7 MSEK
Marknadsplats: NGM Nordic MTF
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