Townsville biotech firm strikes $58m deal to treat waste in US

A Townsville biotech firm has struck a $58m deal to distribute its soil improvement products in the United States. Read their remarkable success story.

A small Townsville biotech company has hit the big time, striking a $58m deal to distribute its products worldwide and appearing on the financial billboards of New York’s Times Square.

But VRM Biologic is no overnight success, having worked with agricultural companies and councils in North Queensland for many years on soil improvement and cleaning up waste.

Now these learnings are being applied to the US after this month’s devastating Hurricane Ian.

VRM will partner with US mulch, soil and lumber supplier The Sustainable Green Team to produce its HumiSoil and XLR8 Bio soil improvement products from the huge amount of organic waste left by Florida’s deadliest hurricane in 80 years.

SGTM will acquire 10 per cent of VRM’s US subsidiary in exchange for six million SGTM shares worth about US$36.6m ($58m), as well as acquire licenses to use VRM’s technology, distribute its products and manufacture its catalysts.

VRM founder Ken Bellamy and VRM CEO Kellie Walters in front of the shipment going to the USA. Picture: Shae Beplate.

VRM Biologik CEO Kellie Walters said the agreement was a “huge advance” on what the company had been doing and built on its work after Cyclone Yasi in 2011.

VRM struck a similar deal to the SGTM agreement with state-owned enterprises working on soil improvement in the Chinese provinces of Shanxi and Shanghai last year.

“(Cyclone) Yasi is where we cut out teeth in treating organic residues. When you see your face on the billboards in Times Square it kind of gives you goosebumps,” Ms Walters said.

SGTM founder Tony Raynor said the VRM process was a huge benefit to the mulch and forest products industry.

“These materials are perfect for making HumiSoil but are currently waste materials of the forest products industry. By utilizing this material at our industry’s mills and mulch yards, we can create a beneficial, sustainable product for agriculture and homeowners and the end product is significantly more valuable, having retained both nutrients and the capacity to make water in soil,” Mr Raynor said.

“All together from the sites we’re operating, we expect to produce several million cubic yards of HumiSoil, a quantity that could be used to treat a near equivalent number of acres of land.”

Ms Walters said VRM was a great example of a firm starting locally and operating

globally.

It also showed the determination of its founder, Ken Bellamy, to revolutionise the way waste is treated and add value to increasingly depleted agricultural soils.

VRM aims to restore productivity in the depleted topsoils of 25 per cent of the world’s arable land.

Originally published as Townsville biotech firm strikes $58m deal to treat waste in US