VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 16, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EnWave Corporation (TSX-V:ENW | FSE:E4U) (“EnWave”, or the "Company") announced today that it has received a purchase order for a 120kW Radiant Energy Vacuum (“REV™”) machine from Orto Al Sole Società Agricola (“Orto Al Sole”) to scale-up the commercial production of fruit and vegetable snack products in Italy using EnWave’s proprietary technology. In July 2020, EnWave signed a royalty-bearing commercial license agreement with Orto Al Sole and sold a 10kW REV™ machine for product development and initial commercial production. Orto Al Sole developed a line of healthy, better-for-you fruit and vegetable snacks that received positive market feedback, leading to scale-up of its manufacturing capacity in preparation for distribution across Italy and potentially Europe.
Orto Al Sole has the exclusive right to produce a variety of fruit and vegetable snack products using REV™ technology in Italy and pays a royalty to EnWave. These REV™-dried products can be sold both domestically and internationally without restriction. Orto Al Sole has the capabilities to achieve large-scale distribution quickly as the owners, the Gandini family, have been successfully operating Ortaggia Val Trebbia (“Val Trebbia”), a premium fresh produce company, for 32 years and have deep relationships in the marketplace. Val Trebbia uses modern cultivation techniques and attention to detail to achieve exceptional results in cultivation of its produce.
According to IRI, the health-conscious consumer is driving growth of products that are organic, vegetarian, and gluten free. European consumers are opting for healthier or lighter products, such as individually portioned fruit, nuts, popcorn, baked and vegetable crisps/chips as their snack of choice. Double-digit growth of vegetable chips, for example, is being fuelled by new product development, including root vegetable, pea, rice, and lentil variants from niche and mainstream brands.1
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7269fa24-92ec-47dc-b23f-3af4ac30437f
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1 Bracknell, IRI; (4 April 2018) ‘On-the-go’ consumers driving sales of snacks across Europe www.IRIworldwide.com
About Orto Al Sole
The parent company of Orto Al Sole, Val Trebbia, was born in 1990 from the experience of the Gandini brothers who have been successful farmers for generations. The company, constantly evolving over the years, has established itself as a prominent grower of green beans and sweet peppers for fresh consumption with major distribution in Italy and the European fruit and vegetable markets.
With decades of experience growing high-quality fruits and vegetables, the company has been constantly evolving over time and has established itself as an important producer in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region. Val Trebbia has a crop-producing capacity of 2,500 acres and produces wheat, asparagus, garlic, pumpkin, peppers, and green beans.
In 2019, the Gandini family started a new project and founded Orto Al Sole to start the production of dried fruits and vegetables and have chosen “REV™” technology to produce premium snack products that are “Made in Italy”.
About EnWave
EnWave Corporation, a Vancouver-based advanced technology company, has developed Radiant Energy Vacuum (“REV™”) – an innovative, proprietary method for the precise dehydration of food and cannabis applications. The Company has developed patented methods for uniformly drying and decontaminating cannabis through the use of REV™ technology, shortening the time from harvest to marketable cannabis products. EnWave also holds a robust intellectual property portfolio protecting several unique processes relating to specific food applications produced using vacuum-microwave technology.
REV™ technology’s commercial viability has been demonstrated and is growing rapidly across several market verticals in the food, and pharmaceutical sectors, including legal cannabis. EnWave’s strategy is to sign royalty-bearing commercial licenses with innovative, disruptive companies in multiple verticals for the use of REV™ technology. The company has signed over fifty licenses to date spanning twenty countries and five continents. In addition to these licenses, EnWave established a Limited Liability Corporation, NutraDried Food Company, LLC, to manufacture, market and sell REV™-dried snack products in North America, including the Moon Cheese® brand, as well as co-manufacture for third parties.
EnWave has introduced REV™ as a disruptive dehydration platform in the food and cannabis sectors: faster and cheaper than freeze drying, with better end product quality than air drying or spray drying. EnWave currently offers two distinct commercial REV™ platforms:
- nutraREV® which is a drum-based system that dehydrates organic materials quickly and at low-cost, while maintaining high levels of nutrition, taste, texture and colour; and,
- quantaREV® which is a tray-based system used for continuous, high-volume low-temperature drying.
EnWave is also active in the pharmaceutical industry through a joint development agreement with GEA Lyophil, a leader in GMP drying machinery.
More information about EnWave is available at enwave.net.
EnWave Corporation
Mr. Brent Charleton, CFA
President and CEO
For further information:
Brent Charleton, CFA, President and CEO at +1 (778) 378-9616
E-mail: bcharleton@enwave.net
Dan Henriques, CFO at +1 (604) 835-5212
E-mail: dhenriques@enwave.net
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