Trellis Earth Products to acquire Cereplast assets
The assets include production equipment, patents, inventory, and trademarks, and the company will pay certain contract cure costs, as part of Cereplast's Chapter 7 liquidation proceedings.
Food containers
Trellis Earth is a seven-year old company with over 500 customers in the food service industry including Kroger, Trader Joe's, and Wegmans. Products include bio-based cutlery, food containers, and shopping bags.
FoodProductionDaily reported in February this year, Cereplast, a manufacturer of bio-based, compostable plastics for packaging and other applications, filed for bankruptcy.
"We have long wanted to mark our products as 'Made in the U.S.A.'," said Mike Senzaki, CEO, Trellis Earth.
"The acquisition of this factory will enable to us to quickly become the pre-eminent American supplier of bioplastic food service disposables."
"Of our 100+ products, we hope to make at least 50% of them in the US within six months and the balance within a year."
Trellis Earth is a privately held company with nearly $20m of sales since its founding in 2007. The company is targeting $8.5m in revenue for 2015 based on strong forecast demand from customers seeking its US-made, corn starch based, proprietary bioplastic finished goods.
The 105,000 square foot facility acquired from Cereplast has existing annual bioplastic manufacturing capacity to produce materials worth over $50m.
Axiom Capital Management Inc. of New York City represented the company in the transaction and acted as sole placement agent.
