The RAW Biochem Journey
Hi! It's a pleasure to meet you. Given the miles & time traveled to get to this point, it's a pleasure to still be standing and to be able to share an abbreviated story of my journey to bring RAW Biochem to market.
The unplanned arrival to this point comes after a long and circuitous route through many of the US states and Canadian provinces with pit stops in Europe and elsewhere as well.
In 2010, I was introduced to a novel "Green" chemistry which had all the attributes that I believed consumers were searching for. The product was from a self-proclaimed inventor out of the US. His one and only product, claimed as it's primary attribute an ability to separate long chain carbon molecules, thereby making it easier to remove fats, oils and grease from the substrates which they adhere to.
That single sentence leapt out of the inventors muddled and confused brochure copy as a product with the capacity to perform a task which conventional petrochemicals had been unable to achieve and deserved further investigation.
After several product trials I was convinced of the product's efficacy and resolved to acquire Canadian license rights. In my first meeting with this US based inventor it quickly became apparent that what should have been a relatively simple process to gaining Canadian rights would require extreme diligence due to the inventor's erratic and confused personality.
As an example and in an effort to gain a better understanding of how the product was able to achieve the distinction of separating long chain carbon molecules, I asked the very basic question.
"How does it work?"
The answer was that he didn't know how it worked and if anyone were to ask me how it was able to perform this feat I should state that it was FM.
I inquired what FM stood for and was told that it is F#@king Magic and that numerous high level scientists and laboratories had been unable to detect the reason for this products success in dealing with FOG (Fats, Oil & Grease).
Only after extreme due diligence did I discover that the so-called inventor had obtained license rights to the formulation through nefarious means from a chemist in Germany with an agreement for royalties on sales to the chemist. Furthermore, those royalties had not been honoured and a civil law suit was in the midst of being prepared to defend the royalties and formulation from further distribution.
Having been down this road in previous years with other mad inventors and self-proclaimed genius types, I chose to move forward on other ventures instead of being tied up with what a less than legitimate supplier.
The opportunities presented by this product continued to haunt me in subsequent months and I resolved to investigate the market for other readily biodegradable and safe to use, bio-based chemistries which could mirror the one I had already tested and tried to gain rights to.
And so the odyssey began! After more than 2 years of research, I had discovered, contacted and interviewed or visited a dozen North American companies claiming to have these same product attributes with another dozen similar contacts in Europe and South America.
It soon became obvious that mad scientists and inventors had individually developed products based on their own proclivities and at the behest of friends, family and acquaintances. The inevitable conclusion to this research was that these bio-based products had no market awareness and no single company had mastered the ability to market and sell their products on a scale equal to those household brands we have all become acquainted with. It was also readily apparent that most of the inventors and scientists had concentrated on a very narrow field of clients in a very narrow industry. E.g.: One company specializes in solutions for cleaning the hold on barges while another individual had mastered a formulation being used in abattoirs in Australia.
Their strength and specialty was derived from word of mouth within an industry segment that had tried and used these formulations for their specific needs but the inventor/scientist had not taken further steps to introduce their products to other markets or industries.
Rare exceptions existed but were hidden in the noise from major chemical marketing programs and the inventors were not easily able to raise their profile above the crowd.
It has been the assembly of these inventors, scientists and suppliers which has enabled RAW to lay claim to more than 3,000 distinctly different formulations which can touch on all industries and applications.
Now, after an 8 year journey, RAW finds itself as a leading proponent of bio-based chemicals which are proving to perform tasks which conventional and traditional petrochemicals are unable to achieve.
After an 8 year gestation period, RAW Biochem has arrived and looks forward to demonstrating product qualities and efficacy unmatched by conventional petrochemicals.
We invite you to join us in our journey to a safer, more sustainable world.
Larry Peters: President
