EnWave Corp (TSX-V:ENW, OTC:NWVCF) CEO Brent Charleton joined Proactive to discuss the company’s continued progress in expanding the commercialization of its patented Radiant Energy Vacuum technology.
Charleton shared details on a new contract with MicroDried, which has grown into EnWave’s top royalty-generating partner.
The company is now broadening its product offerings beyond dried fruits and vegetables to include a diverse dairy portfolio, such as dried yogurt and cheese products, produced at a new facility in Washington State.
Proactive: All right. Welcome back inside our Proactive newsroom. And joining me now is Brent Charleton, the CEO of EnWave Corp. Brent, it's great to see you again. How are you doing?
Brent Charleton: Good. I'm very well this morning.
Good. Good to have you along. Out with another contract with MicroDried. They seem to be your top client, and that continues as well.
Yeah. MicroDried has been a fabulous partner through the commercialization of our patented radiant energy vacuum technology. They, in fact, have the most large-scale production lines globally and have now expanded their product portfolio from being purely fruit and vegetable ingredients and snacks to now including a broad dairy portfolio at a brand-new facility that they're completing in Washington state. This will now allow them to service different large CPG companies with dried yogurt, snacks, dried cheese—you name it.
Are you seeing the trend here for people to push more towards the dried part of this and just the convenience of it, especially with kids and the type of snacks you're talking about really associate with children?
Yeah. I mean, the ability to produce healthy and nutritious, shelf-stable options for children and adults for snacking and for other food applications is one huge benefit of this technology. But also, the trends towards using more natural flavors and colors throughout North America and Europe has really helped a lot of our technology adopters to grow their businesses, respectively.
So let's talk a little bit about MicroDried. You mentioned that they're the largest now for the machines. And there's some royalty that goes along with that. It's obviously positive for the company, but it seems like they've become sort of that great test case for anyone else you want to deal with because of the success they've had.
Absolutely. I mean, MicroDried is already one of our larger royalty payers on an annual basis. Now they've got exclusive rights to produce Greek yogurt and Mochi products, and again, the ability to do a number of new dairy products. With those new rights come minimum royalty requirements, which will kick in in 2027. So it gives them a year to build out their business with a new facility, hopefully win some very large clients, and then in return, we’ll hopefully see our diversified royalty portfolio grow significantly.
And just really quickly, Brent, I want to ask you about overseas and Europe and places like that. Are you still seeing a lot of interest? From there, I know you can't announce anything yet, but just wondering about the pipeline for overseas.
Yeah, let’s say the percentage of new prospects in our pipeline has grown in the European continent. That's partially to do with renewed and growing interest, but also the hire that we made for a senior business development manager who’s domiciled out of the Netherlands, who’s been very vigorous in driving new conversations and new opportunities for us.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and style