Good morning, and welcome to the Zotefoams PLC post-AGM presentation. Throughout the recorded presentation, attendees will be in listen-only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted anytime by the Q&A tab situated in the right corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions and press Send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself; however, the company can review all the questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. Before we begin, I'd like to submit the following poll. I'd now like to hand you off to Ronan Cox, CEO. Good morning to you, sir.
Good morning, Alessandro, and thank you very much, and welcome everyone to the post-AGM presentation at Zotefoams. Alessandro, if you could just move through the slides, please. Just first, in terms of the notices, everyone to take note of those. And now if we move on. Brilliant. Thank you. Okay, first of all, I'd like to say I'm delighted to be joining Zotefoams, delighted to be here for the first presentation, post the AGM. We had our AGM around about 45 minutes ago, where I assumed the role of Chief Executive of Zotefoams. I have to say that I'm both delighted and proud to be in that role. I came to Zotefoams for numerous reasons, but was particularly attracted to a great British manufacturing company with a fantastic heritage.
One that focuses on innovation, one that has unique, technology, that's, focused on delivering many sustainable solutions, and one indeed, that has got a very large export market opportunities and a growing global footprint. I've been here since early April. I've had a chance to take a good view and look at the business, its products, its people, its processes, its customers, and actually understand also and meet some of our shareholders and owners of the business. And I have to say that the longer I'm here, the more excited I am about the opportunities that we have within the business.
What's equally great from my perspective is that, David Stirling, who has served this business so incredibly well over the last 27 years, has been a great guide to me over the last few weeks, and David will also be staying with us up until the end of October to work on a number of key strategic projects, which we'll talk about a little bit more in the presentation. But with that, I guess just first, very first, impressions of the business. What struck me straight away was really the entrepreneurial mindset in this business. A business that has evolved considerably over its 100-year history, that has managed to move into and out of markets, and actually carve access into a large number of high growth markets, high growth global markets.
Over 18 different markets that we trade in today, and some of those offering considerable opportunities for growth in the future. I'm equally excited by some of the alliances that we're making within the business, and we'll dive a little bit more into one of those, particularly around Shincell. So the strategic alliance with Shincell that was announced earlier in the month. Also ReZorce. There's a lot of I guess a lot of excitement around ReZorce, particularly after our media launch in Amsterdam last week, and we're going to get an opportunity to show you a little bit more about that, and we'll play a video, actually, which is an excerpt from the media presentation that we did last week.
David, as he's staying on in the business, and helping me, is specifically looking after these two key strategic initiatives. So the development of the alliance with Shincell and the ongoing development of the ReZorce product and project. The business is entering into a phase of enhanced collaboration, and you will see, as we go through the presentation today, just the touch points alone within those strategic alliances are considerable. And that will be an ongoing theme for the business in the coming weeks, months, and I would say years. And we've got quite a few options within the business.
Options for growth, options for value addition, and it is certainly my view that the business has got clear strategic intent in terms of the markets that it wants to develop. I'm delighted that I'm able to come into the business and continue to develop on those, on that strategic direction for the business. If we move to the next slide, please. Just a quick reminder of who we are and what we are and what we do. Today, essentially, we've got two clear technologies, and the core business is anchored around its autoclave technology, splitting into its polyolefin foams, and then its HPP foams. This is our core business. This is the business in which these are the products and the markets in which this business has been founded and continues its success.
And then we have our extrusion technology business, so, which is now almost completely focused on the ReZorce mono-material packaging solution that we'll have a look at a little later. So in terms of trading in the first four months of the year, it's been strong. And the group continues to see strong momentum coming out of 2023 into this first four months, and that's manifested in 14% sales growth, and we've hit record revenue in those four months. Particularly strong is HPP, and within HPP, the footwear sales grew significantly at around 44%. Now, a lot of that can be attributed to our customer Nike, in terms of the programs that they're driving through, but also some inventory build, particularly compensating for some of the supply chain challenges around the Red Sea.
ZOTEK F sales have been strong also in the first four months, albeit the start of the year is typically fairly quiet in this part of the market. T-FIT, as well, has seen strong sales growth at 57% in the first four months of the year. On the other side, in our polyolefin foams, we've seen declines of 7%, and that's largely been driven by some challenges in continental Europe, where we've seen fairly subdued demand for a number of reasons in some of those markets. That's been partly offset by pretty strong demand in sales in North America.
We've also seen some change in terms of average selling price in the polyolefin business, and that's a combination of things, but a large part coming from a deliberate shift in product mix towards lighter and more cost-effective foams, and a little bit in there from exchange rates. We go to the next slide, please. Okay. So I just want to touch on first in terms of the strategic projects. We've got to focus on two, and then I will come back to the third project before we end the presentation today. But the first one is with regards to the alliance that we discussed with Shincell. So we announced that agreement on the seventh of May, so a particularly exciting development around the technology.
I will go into a bit more detail in a second. Then on the fifteenth of May, we gave an update to the media on the ReZorce packaging solution, circular packaging solution. Sorry, please go to the next slide. We'll just delve into Shincell a bit more. So what is the agreement? Well, essentially, we have agreed at a price of GBP nine million, which will be paid over five years. We have agreed. With that agreement, we tap into the technology, which is a mixed gas technology, that Shincell have been developing over the last five or six years in China.
This is a technology that we at Zotefoams have been experimenting with, and we recognized over the last periods that to boost this, an alliance with Shincell would greatly accelerate us across that innovation curve. The one thing that I would really like to stress around this agreement is that it is a one-way agreement. We are buying IP, we are buying that know-how and that knowledge from Shincell, and we are not trading any of our IP back to Shincell. So this is entirely about boosting our innovation in this mixed gas territory. In parallel with that, we have also agreed a distribution agreement with Shincell, and that is targeting a specific part of a PVDF market that will really support our commercial development of existing and new products.
And indeed, in this area, we believe we'll also be able to work with Shincell on their market access, particularly into China. So why are we doing this? Essentially, this is to open up new markets. New markets in terms of industries, new markets, potentially in terms of geographies, but particularly in terms of industries, and also accessing new products. Driving innovation and new products with this technology. A significant part of what we hope to achieve and we plan to achieve with the Shincell alliance is to develop in-house technologies. We are not envisaging outsourcing any considerable volumes to Shincell. This is about taking that technology in-house and developing it within the Zotefoams footprint. What's very key around the alliance is that we have got exclusivity.
So as I say, it is a very attractive technology. There are particular attributes in the way that this technology allows us to increase our production and our volumes at a less capital-intensive way. It allows us to, as I say, access potentially new products and potentially access products in different form. So if we think about near net shape foams. And we have that exclusivity over the five-year period, and as I say, I stress that this will greatly accelerate our journey on the innovation curve in our core markets and opening up new markets for us also. If we go to the next slide, please. Okay, ReZorce, our mono-material disruptor, circular packaging.
You know, a very exciting project that Zotefoams have been working on for a number of year, a number of years now. You will know some of the headline numbers around this, a less energy consumed, much less water. Overall, global warming potential is 50% lower than its rival products. Up to 100% recycled content. Legislation tailwinds coming in the market that are going to penalize the alternate LPB products that cannot be properly recycled. This business and technology is absolutely backed with strong, strong IP. At the media launch last week, we introduced our strategic partners here, so in the form of Südpack, Refresco, and we also have been working with Biffa, the large U.K. recycler.
Our next steps in this process are really driving forward sterility trials, also working then on retail and consumer acceptance in North Europe. And what we are looking as we gain more traction and more interest in the technology is to secure investment partners to allow us to scale up this opportunity. We've engaged with Mazzone, and we'll be working with them over the coming weeks and months as we look at the potential investment landscape for people to partner with us. But rather than me trying to talk more about this, we're gonna take the opportunity to share a video with you, which is an extract from the two-hour session that we had last week.
I'd just like to say that I've also got David is joining me in the background here today, and just to reinforce the point that he'll still be working on this particular project to answer any questions at the end. So, if we could just go to the next slide, please, and then we play the video, Alessandro.
The packaging itself, also in carbon emissions in the process, is about 3.4% of the total emissions. That's more than aviation and shipping combined. I would like to be in the shipping or aviation industry from a carbon point of view. We have our job cut out there, and credit to the companies that find solutions here with innovation. What makes it even more scary is that the numbers that we're going to produce and the current trends are set to triple between now and 2050, 2060, if we don't do anything.
When we see things like, cartons coming through, made out of LPB, well, it disrupts the recycling process. It adds to the level of contamination. We have to take it out, so rather than it being, beneficial to recycling stream, it adds a layer of complication to our equipment and to our, sorting processes.
We've got some brilliant news that we're excited to share today. We can reduce the carbon footprint of aseptic packaging by more than 50%, and water consumption and energy consumption by more than 50%. How? By launching ReZorce Cartons, the world's first and only fully recyclable, truly circular beverage carton.
ReZorce is a mono-material made from different layers, all crafted from the same polymers. To be able to introduce the attributes that we need for various applications, we have capitalized on our MuCell technology, where we're injecting a tiny amount of nitrogen into the polymer when it is molten, and then this is how we're controlling the density of the layers.
Mono-material, which is what the recycled package is, makes it extremely easy to recycle. It's also very, very simple for the consumer to understand.
ReZorce is compatible with virtually every existing system that's present in the beverage industry. We have a change part kit, which takes a couple of days to install, and we can get you up and running within a few hours to start the validation process.
I'd like to pay special thanks today to Mr. Coert Michielsen at Refresco for providing access for the ReZorce team to Refresco's experts, and the filling line in one of the plants where we've been able to test, trial, and validate the ReZorce cartons. Not only does this very important partnership ensure the highest standards of technical excellence, but also provides a platform as we go forward to scale quickly.
We are, indeed working with partners to win. What we see, which has changed over the past, years, is that our customers, we work basically for all the large retailers in Europe, North America, and Australia, as well as for the large A brands. They are all looking for more sustainable solutions. They're looking for choice-
... They're looking for recyclability, they're looking for recycled content, and they're looking for a partner who is willing to be a front runner and is willing to take some risk to make the step forward. And that's the front runner we wanna be.
Quite straightforward. The simple packaging is easily recycled. Complicated packaging, they're difficult to recycle. So we strongly encourage simple packaging, monostructures, that are easy to recycle and fit in with the current infrastructure that we have. That's why we're so interested in ReZorce, because it's been designed for recyclability in mind, and it fits in with the existing recycling chain.
There's a lot more momentum now to really support that shift towards, yeah, a more sustainable move, like we see with ReZorce, having viable alternatives out there. I think what this can create is a best practice for legislators to start building a new baseline. I think that is the promise that you're trying to make. Building on what Paul also said, we're trying to build, you need to have create tipping points. So if you want to have systemic change, you really need to focus on getting best practices out there that legislators can build their new decisions on.
We believe that the function of plastic, combined with a proper recycling offering, can be or can reshape the future of pack, of plastics, actually. Finally, in summary, you know, I asked the question to you: So what does ReZorce have to do with Südpack? First of all, I believe that our extrusion capabilities and know-how will enable us to scale this pretty quickly. We are ready to invest in growth. The way we think is very similar. You think circular, we think circular.
The world's first fully recyclable, fully circular beverage carton is right here, right now, and it's ReZorce. Thank you.
Thank you, Alessandro. And if we could just go to the next slide, please. Fantastic. So I think that clip, as I said, is a five-minute extract from the media event last week. Just pulling out and referencing some of the people that we heard from. So Paul Polman, who is the former CEO of Unilever and I guess a sustainability champion, recognized globally for the work that he does in terms of climate change and action around that, was our keynote speaker, and really, you know, he endorsed what we are, what we are doing, and I think that you heard that there.
We heard from Chris Hanlon, Commercial Director in the UK for Biffa, probably came out with the simplest and best statement that we will hear around this, which is: Simple packaging is easy to recycle, and complex packaging is difficult to recycle. So ReZorce, as a monomaterial alternative, so simple to the complicated LPB, is just absolutely what recyclers want. They want something that can be recycled. We heard from Coert Michielsen, and I think just to underline Coert's role, he is the Chief Procurement and Manufacturing Officer at Refresco. Refresco, one of the large packagers in the industry globally, absolutely have been working with us hand in hand as we've been developing the technology on their lines to ensure that this is workable in terms of a solution.
We heard from Willemijn Peeters, who is a sustainability champ with her business, Searious, and we also heard from Dirk Hardow from Südpack, one of our partners in the supply chain, supplying laminated films for us. So, you know, an incredible panel of people that were coming to support what we are doing in ReZorce. Now, we have got more stat milestones ahead, particularly around sterility testing, particularly about the ongoing bug trials with ReZorce. And as I said before the video, it is incumbent on us to also look at who can partner with us, to help us drive the most amount of optionality around this innovation that we've been developing at Zotefoams.
So, yeah, great developments, great reception, great partners, and as we see from this slide, this is not about Zotefoams going it alone. It is absolutely vital that we have a whole ecosystem that will work with us as we continue to develop this, as we continue to bring this product to market with partners. Great, and if we go to the last slide. Okay, so as a step back, and a look at our outlook for the business, the board anticipates that most of our growth is going to come from the HPP portfolio, for the reasons that you heard earlier. We do expect that we will see the performance of the polyolefin business to improve.
At the current exchange rates, we believe that there will be little impact on our previously forecasted full year profits, so we maintain guidance at that level. As we look forward for the coming weeks and months, there are three big priorities besides business as usual. You've heard from two, to come to the third, just to underline the investment that we're making in the U.S., bringing in a second low-pressure vessel. That work is already well underway. It is a big piece of work, and we expect the commissioning of that extra capacity to come online in Q2 2025. So that project has started. It is going to plan. We've heard about the Shincell Alliance, we've heard about ReZorce.
I'd underline that David is continuing with the business up until the end of October to make sure that we've got continuity around these two really key strategic projects. So in summary, the performance for the first four months of the year has been really strong, and we've got a really, really strategic strong platform to deliver these strategic projects. Clearly, the world remains incredibly volatile and, you know, we need to be mindful of that volatility. However, our full year expectations do remain unchanged, and more importantly, we remain very confident about the long-term prospects of the business. So with that, I'm going to conclude the formal presentation and open for Q&A.
Perfect. Thank you very much for your presentation. And then, Gary, if I could just ask you to just turn your camera back on at this point, that would be great. You can do that at the top of your screen. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the Q&A tab, which is situated on the top right-hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to read the questions that have been submitted today, I'd like to remind you that a recording of this presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard. As you can see, we have received a number of questions throughout today's presentation.
If I could just hand back to you, just read out the questions and give responses to it, if it's appropriate to do so. I'll pick up from you at the end.
Alessandro, I can't switch the camera back on.
Okay. Let me just refresh your browser, one moment, and then I'll pull that through for you. Ladies and gentlemen, do give us one moment.
Thank you.
I'm just gonna put your camera up now. Perfect.
There we go. Excellent. Thank you for that. Okay. All right. So, let's start with... Let's start at the top and work our way down. So how is the Refour acquisition contributing to the business? Very good, David!
Thanks, Ronan. Well, the Refour acquisition was, you know, last year in Denmark, we bought a company that was aimed really at trying to do the same thing as ReZorce. They had invested in extrusion capacity or capability, and us bringing that inside and working together with them, combined our knowledge on the technology, the markets. We have some market contacts that indirectly actually led to the Refresco alliance. But as importantly, the people within the Refour business are a kind of integral part of our management team, and we have, in Denmark, a pilot-scale extruder, extrusion line that we can make all of the ReZorce substrate on.
So that gives us the capacity to scale up, for market trials, you know, all of that in-house, do formula changes, and look at, you know, different functionality, layers for the packs, all on the right scale. It's not full-scale production, but it's not lab scale either. It's exactly in the middle, which gives you very high confidence of transferring it to full scale, when you need it. And the Südpack guys are absolutely full scale extrusion guys. They came up to the Denmark site to have a look at that and understand it, and they're very confident that that can be replicated at industrial scale on standard extrusion equipment, which is exactly what we're aiming for.
Very good. Thank you, David. So we've got quite a few questions on ReZorce, okay? So I'm gonna put a few more to you here, if you don't mind. Yeah. I can answer a few myself. So I think the first: Is ReZorce price competitive against LPB, and what sort of margin do you expect on what sort of volume? Actually, I'll take that one, and absolutely we believe that ReZorce is price competitive against LPB. So this is really a function of scale. And so at lower volumes, there is a small marginal premium on the ReZorce product. However, that is not so significant that we don't think that we can get to parity when we get up to reasonable volume production.
Then at that point, we would expect sort of similar margins that you would see in that industry. So yeah, we can be price competitive. In fact, I think that's a core aspect of this, is that the product will be price competitive and that we can get to a parity level. Let's go to the next question. If you tackle pouches next, what would be the timeframe to market? Oh, that's a great one. Well, you know, I think the pouches are a great opportunity for this product. It's really, I think that we need to take the right steps. We need to complete what we've been doing in terms of cartons.
Pouches are a very natural next step for this technology as we prove ourselves in the carton space. It really the technology lends itself very, very well to pouches. And so it's not a huge jump. In terms of timelines, I think it would be tricky to say that. All I would say is that it's a very logical next step after cartons, and it's not a huge jump to develop into that market. Can you give some more detail on the timelines for the rollout of ReZorce? Clearly the next steps around sterility testing, then on-shelf trials and consumer acceptance, all of this is a body of work that we are going through with our partners, Refresco.
It's difficult to be certain about the amount of time that would take, but, you know, it's certainly activity that we would want to have completed this year, you know, within six months. It's a hard timeline to really nail down, but that's where our focus is, and that's these are really the important next steps and big milestones. The next point is, ReZorce sounds terrific. I'd rather Zotefoams fund this ourselves rather than giving away upside to an outside investment partner. Why can't we go it alone in this, even if it means a small placing of new shares? I'd say that, you know, at this point, finding a partner to come in will help accelerate...
It's not just about the money, but it's also about the market access and navigating this market, where we are, which is not central to our activities. That said, you know, we are committed to remain incredibly flexible, agile, and we just need to watch the level of interest, the quality of partners that we can engage with investment partners. So, whilst, you know, never say never in terms of what we would plan to do, we want to retain optionality.
It is our view that it will take investment partners to get this to scale, because it will require, you know, a considerable amount of money, but also a considerable amount of expertise, and I would say, an already existing presence in the market. But, you know, as I say, we retain all sort of optionality there at the moment. The next question is, you mentioned stocking up by customers to cope with the effects of the Red Sea diversion. Are you able to quantify what impact you believe this has had on your sales forecast for the year?
I think for the year, we're actually anticipating that we've seen demand pull forward a bit in this early part of the year, and there may be a bit of correction in the second half of the year. So it's not materially changing the, well, it's not changing, sorry. It's not changing our forecast, per se, around that part of the market. It's really more a question of phasing. That part of the business is still on a year-for-year basis showing good growth. When are you expecting commercial production for ReZorce to start? I think I've kind of addressed that in terms of the trials. It's so the sterility trials and the on-shelf trials, the consumer testing. It is very dependent around that.
You know, you've heard the interest from, from people like Chris, from Coert, from Willemijn , from Dirk, you know, from, from all the panel that, that we met last week. We've got a momentum around ReZorce, and it's clearly very important that, that we maintain that momentum. So, really, it's a case that, that we are gonna be focused on driving that forward. David is, as I say, staying here, and he's going to help accelerate that and continue the focus within the business. I don't know, David, do you wanna comment on timing? And maybe even say a little bit more around the overall project and as you see the milestones.
Yeah, certainly at this point, there are two threads. Clearly, market in-market validation. You know, we don't see anything there that we are concerned about, but there is a process to go through. And following the validation, we have had a very large response to the ReZorce project over the last 12 months or so. That's without doing much advertising. Now we're kind of out there, saying that we're working with people like Refresco, who have got the capability, as the largest independent packaging, beverage packaging company in the world. To deliver this, the interest levels have increased, so we've got a huge market pool here happening.
The actual scale up is something that we have to decide between us and Refresco, and that would be something that would be discussed really at the point of the market trials or shortly thereafter. But if we look at the infrastructure we have built and the way we've built it, you know, we've gone through every step of the supply chain, making sure that not only can we deliver, but it's compatible with existing infrastructure systems. And that's why even though we've got a pilot line in Denmark, the Südpack guys are very interested about using their facilities, their equipment to scale up. So, the timing is definitely something that would primarily be triggered following the market trials. You know, the formalization of that timing, so inappropriate to cover that just now.
Very good. Thank you, David. Okay, does the Shincell deal allow you to expand the range of products which can potentially use ReZorce technology? In short, no. They're two different spaces, and the Shincell deal is absolutely focused on our core foam business, and so, no, the answer is no. Okay, how will ReZorce actually be recycled? Does it require any major investment from recycling partners or packagers before recycling can kick in? I think we probably heard the answer from Chris there, but, you know, David, go for this.
Well, Chris, what you didn't hear in the video clip, because we had to condense the highlights really, and I think this was ... If we'd another 30 seconds, we'd have another section from Chris.
Yeah.
And, and he said, because recycling systems vary across the world, but let's take the U.K. The product is made with the same material as a milk carton or milk bottle, high-density polyethylene-
Right
... that is widely recycled. In fact, Chris said, "If every single beverage carton in the U.K. was transferred to ReZorce tomorrow, the industry has sufficient capacity to recycle all of those." He also said that 75% of current cartons are landfilled and incinerated, and the 25% that do get recycled in some way never, ever come back as a carton.
Very good. Thank you, David. Gary, a couple of questions here. I'm gonna group them together.
To let me say something?
To let you say something, absolutely. Okay, with the group looking to secure investment partners, what is the most likely approach at this stage? Is it possible the company would look to do a placing for shareholders? And I guess let's tie this in. Would the investment partner you aim to bring on board be limited to cartons, or would all ReZorce applications be included?
Yeah, so, I mean, you've answered part of that in a previous question about the most likely approach. So, yeah, the media launch was important to demonstrate that we have a product, that we are working with serious partners, and that we have reached a particular milestone. The step now is to proceed with engaging using Mazzone, as you mentioned earlier, to look at who are out there with interest. The point is, again, tack onto that question about why don't we do it ourselves? This is a $360 billion carton market, and we are talking, you know, we talked about Südpack, and they're talking about a $100 million.
It is a very small number if we, you know, if and when we start doing it ourselves. The market, the challenge, the issue is here now, as Neil said, right here, right now, and the quickest way and the way to scale this is by working with a partner who is in the industry and who is multi-billion. This is a multi-billion industry. It is a packaging industry. Zotefoams is not a packaging industry expert. We have the technology. We are an autoclave technology expert with significant opportunity with our AZOTE, with our HPP products. So, we are looking to monetize the opportunity.
We're looking to deliver a solution to society, an optimal benefit, a product, a material that has the optimal benefit for society, which is this single use, very simple to run through if it's existing infrastructure, when we're looking at the UK. So, if we were to go to market, the amount that we'd have to raise to make this matter is quite significant and far superior to the size of the business. So, we do believe that the partnership is the right approach. We've got, you know, we've got the product out there, we've got this messaging out there, and the process starts from today. What was the second question, sorry?
Second question was-
Would the investment partner you aim to bring on board be limited to cartons? No, I mean, we are focused on cartons because that is a very large business, and it is a business supplied by a few participants, occupied by a few participants. The pouch market is very, very broad, and so we're able to speak to a very clear number of potentially interested parties. But the fact, you know, the fact is that the ... And we've got limited resources, we're focused on proving this out. As we've said, you know, we can move on to pouches. The ...
It is entirely up to the partner that we feel is the most beneficial to us from a monetizing perspective to decide what they want to do. We are not necessarily looking at one sole solution. It is not a one size fits all. We may, and David's mentioned this in the past, you know, that the type of investor we might work with to begin with may be very much focused on Europe and North America. And when you start looking at options in Japan or in Korea, these companies may not be active there.
Obviously, you know, we know local companies normally are the experts in those fields, and that might be a different opportunity entirely, with a different scheme, potentially licensing our technology. Pouches might be with the same, might be with a different business. This is the first stage, developing the carton, find the partner. If they want more, great. If this is their bag, then great, because it's a massive opportunity.
Very good. Thank you, Gary. Will Shincell technology be used for Nike products? Shincell technology can be used across all of our foam product ranges. You know, it's got. It can bring particular attributes and benefits, and we will be looking to really leverage that technology across the customer base. So could that involve Nike? Absolutely, yes. Can you provide a quantitative or at least a qualitative summary of CapEx that will be required in the coming months and year to grow the ReZorce business? Gary, that sounds like one you'd like.
That definitely sounds like one, doesn't it? So that is, where are we at the moment? We are, you know, we have the extrusion capability in, through Refour, in Denmark, and we are lining up, companies such as Südpack, who can take that further. There's a number of- David's mentioned in the past, there's a number of processes. You take your extrude, you extrude the product, we have to seal it, we have to crease it, we have to put labeling on. We have, we are investing in those ma- those machines. A few million of our, I think it's GBP 16 million, the fork ...
The analysts have us in for like a 16-17 million spend this year, which includes the LP2, the low-pressure vessel in the States, plus ReZorce, plus obviously ongoing investment. So that's what's important to get these two stages through. Otherwise, what we capitalize is actually people. On that video, a number of the people that are in-house are actually expert industry experts, who are not full employees of Zotefoams, and they're working on a development project. Under accounting rules, that has to be capitalized and treated as CapEx. So that is what's going in there. It's pretty much now that we've effectively placed our orders in for those machines, the capital going forward for the rest of this year is mostly people being capitalized.
What happens next is very much dependent upon what happens with this, with this investment partner.
Okay, great. Thank you. David, are there any key regulatory changes that are important or even required to give commercial impetus to ReZorce, for example, PPWD? Are there any specific changes on the horizon which you think are key? And then from a different person, but a little bit, I guess, connected, is tethered caps EU Directive 2019/904, which I'm sure you know intimately. Is that a challenge? So
Well, let's deal with the easy one first.
Yeah.
Tethered caps, no problem. Proven.
Okay.
If we look at some of the packaging waste directives, we look at EPR, Extended Producer Responsibilities for packaging, yeah, the EU is certainly going that way. They're looking at really two avenues. The first one is: Can the product be recycled? And how recyclable is it? And secondly: Does the product use recycled content? And so if you look at those, we are very well positioned for both of those. The way that EU directive is being implemented in different member states is somewhat different. So there are areas where I think we are, you know, we will get a bigger leg up than others. But certainly, in all cases, what we see...
is having a solution which is compliant with that future legislation, and also the, the, the desire of, of the brands or the retailers, to connect with the consumer in that way, because I think consumers are being, you know, increasingly well-informed about not just is it recyclable, but does it get recycled? Because there's a lot of claims around recyclability. And so you heard from, Willemien Peeters, who's the, you know, really active in, in lobbying, EU regulators and, and, in the video around opening the regulators' eyes to the possibilities of other technologies, because the carton format is ubiquitous, and, up to this point, it's all been liquid packaging board, multi-material construct with cardboard, with aluminum, with polymer all together. And as we heard from Biffa, that's not really what people want, and it's not recycled and certainly not circular.
and so the regulators are put in a position of saying, "Oh, we want to put pressure on the industry to be more circular. We want to put pressure on the industry to use recycled content," et cetera. It's easier to do that if they can point to something that says, "That does it." and so our launch allows us to engage and people like Willemien or the brands, et cetera, to engage with regulators. So, you know, in summary, we have not just designed ReZorce to be compliant with an existing scale-up physical infrastructure. We have designed it to be compliant with the regulatory environment, and today, 30% recycled content, we can increase that as the, as the thresholds move up.
Excellent. Thank you, David. We've got ... Hold up! There's more coming. Another one for you, David: What sort of products could use the microwave, microwavability of ReZorce?
Yeah. So we've got, firstly, current cartons can't be microwaved. They've got aluminum in, and so it's not a product category that they really look at. So we're talking range extension here. The obvious ones are things like soups. You know, if you go to, you get, for example, Covent Garden Soup Company, soup in a carton. What do you do with that? You pour it out into a pot, or you pour it into a dish that you then put in the microwave. With the right 100% mono-material polymer structure, you just, you know, open it up a little bit, put it in the microwave, and pour it into your bowl. So that's an example.
It also does open up other range extensions, for things like, oils, whether that's cooking oils or, or whatever, soaps, refills, detergents, et cetera. Those are pretty difficult to do with the current carton system. The carton system's great because it's a, it's a, it's a ... You know, on the, on the shelf, it looks like a great pack. It's got a full front that you can print late, print your marketing messages on. It distributes very well. You know, its bulk packing density, because it's square, works really well, for distribution compared to bottles, which are round, of course. But also, the inbound, packaging, when it's being filled, it comes flat pack and then it's filled into a carton. So for many reasons, distribution reasons, it's light, but you can't do multi-pour.
The minute you pour, open the carton and pour once, a little bit of liquid goes into the forestry product, card or whatever, paperboard part of that carton and starts to weaken the structure. Not a problem if you're using apple juice, you typically will use that carton in a day or two. You put cooking oil in there, you put laundry detergent in there, and you put it back under your in your cupboard, over a few pours, you will weaken the structure, and it potentially will fail. And so that's not something we've got a problem with. We have a non-wicking carton. That's one of the patents, the IP around that, and I think that's a very interesting discussion to have, as a brand extension a range extension.
Mm.
- possibility in addition to the microwavability.
Brilliant. Sort of ties into that a little bit, David. One last, last question.
I see that.
You're on a roll.
I've been in this audience before.
You're on a roll, and this is from Rupert K., and I do apologize for not allowing you to get to the other questions, but Rupert has got the last question here, and it does tie into that. I believe the answer ties into your previous answer, particularly around wicking and challenges. So are there any non-plastic packaging solutions being developed by others, and to what extent are they a threat?
Yeah. If we concentrate on the carton market for a moment, I'll come to pouches later. We have seen the incumbents try to eliminate aluminum from their packs, which is to be welcomed, and it does reduce their carbon footprint, but it doesn't get anywhere near as good as ours. So they're touting these as you know, the next generation, but they still have zero recycled content. They still have multi-material packs, and they are definitely not circular. And you know, that linear economy, it doesn't change that. Moving to non-plastic, yeah, people are trying to make non-plastic barrier, a liquid barrier. But that can be done, but you've got a combination of things you need to think about.
You need to think about the liquid barrier, you need to think about the oxygen barrier, and you also need to think about, you know, is this scalable? And many of the solutions that are being touted around today are not scalable within the existing infrastructure, and so that is, that's tremendously important. So, I have not seen, and we're fairly active in monitoring these, I've not seen any comparable alternative packaging in the carton space. In the pouch space, I think people are doing a pretty decent job in moving away from multi-material solutions towards mono-material pouches. So that's something that, you know, as Ronan said, we've got capability there.
But I think Gary said it as well, that market is much more fragmented, much more complicated, and I think we've got a solution that will have it part of that space in pouches, whereas with carton, we have a solution that not only covers all of the existing products packaged in carton, but gives range extension possibilities.
Brilliant, David. Thank you very much. And that, I think we have now addressed all of the questions. So, just to conclude the call today, first of all, I would just like to recap and remind us all that the first four months have seen a very strong performance in the business with that revenue increase to record levels. We've answered a lot of questions about ReZorce today, and the excitement is very clear. I would stress that the business has been built on its core business around foams, so around polyolefins, around our HPP business. We have strategic projects with the Shincell alliance, which is extremely exciting. ReZorce is another very key strategic initiative and project and exciting area for the business.
There's a lot going on in the business, and there's a lot to be positive about. As we look to the full year, with all of the volatility in markets, et cetera, we retain our guidance in terms of profitability. So, you know, we are doing well. And, you know, I would like to close finally by saying, you know, it's an absolute honor and privilege to be taking on the role as a CEO at this incredibly exciting time. And, I hope that you-- that many of you that will have known David for a long time will also appreciate him continuing to work with the business to the end of October on these, on the two of the three strategic projects.
You can see how that's going to help me considerably as well as I embark on this role as CEO of this fantastic company. So with that, we've hit the hour. Thank you, all. It's been a pleasure, and I look forward to many more meetings with you all. Thank you very much.
Perfect. Ronan, Gary, David, thank you very much for updating investors today. Could I please ask investors not to close the session, as you'll now be automatically redirected to provide your feedback in order that the management team can better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but some shall be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of Zotefoams PLC, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation, and good afternoon to you all.