Provexis Share Discussion Threads

[gix er] 06/6/2023 18:56

winner, AD quoted that the cost to manufacture FF, in an article at the start of the year, was 150 Euro. We have taken (so far) €550k of stock back from DSM.

By my calculations (if the above is correct) that would mean we had 3,666kg of stock.
I agree though that cash will be needed to purchase future stock but the more we sell now, the less funds we will need.

BWTFDIK :)

[winner31] 06/6/2023 11:37

The future demand being ascertained at the moment by the company should throw up some interesting insights , if By health come back and say we will need a 1000kg in the next 12 months I doubt present stocks would cover that , there might be the need for a more significant cash injection to cover a much larger production run or maybe the need for a continuous run to meet demand, I suppose that’s what’s causing the lack of news !

[bareknee] 31/5/2023 18:20

Cheers Gixer

Hopefully any glitches have been permanently sorted out. They're all probably relatively small fry, but if consumers can't buy their pills it's not as though they're just deferring a purchase so the retailers cashflow is affected which means our cashflow is affected ( though probably to a lesser degree )


BB

[oldham45] 31/5/2023 14:03

Healthspan. Circulease has been my main supplier. I used to get half price offers on this product and stocked up, but seems to have stopped.

[gix er] 31/5/2023 13:00

BB,

Fruitflow Plus and Circulease now both available at H&B and Healthspan.
Simply Supplements, however, is still showing Out Of Stock.

Glad I was wrong regarding H&B even though it will never be a big earner for us.

[winner31] 30/5/2023 10:19

By-health the biggest supplement retailer by a long way .

[winner31] 24/5/2023 16:28

The present revenue has little relevance to pxs going forward , and if the board have prioritised the By-health contract for these others then maybe we can get the revenue growing a lot quicker than from the likes of H&B , to be honest h&b have not pushed this product once in the 5 years since the contract started , I go into H&b quite a lot and ff+ has never been in your face when you walk in even in the early days , so good riddance if the contract is over , we have much bigger fish to fry imho.

[gix er] 24/5/2023 07:18

BB, I agree that not being able to supply customers is bad news but there is no evidence that would suggest that the above products being out of stock is anything to do with the lack of FF being supplied by Provexis or DSM.

Yes there could have been a delay due to the company signing contracts with Healthspan and Simply Supplements but there could also be various other reasons. Both Healthspan and Simply say there products are manufactured in the UK (possibly the same manufacturer)and there could be an issue with them. We don't even know if these companies are direct customers of Provexis and may be waiting on DSM to supply the premix. Not the first time products have been out of stock for a long time when DSM were in charge. Swanson FF (now gone) springs to mind.

Holland and Barrett is a different situation and we know Fruitflow Plus is a DSM market ready solutions product (could be a premix but doubt it) so if stock is low then you could blame pxs/dsm but, and I hope I am wrong, I think the Holland and Barrett relationship has come to an end.

So Yes it could have been an issue with the hand over or long lead times with DSM supplying premixes/market ready solutions but it could easily be something else altogether.

"balls up" possibly, but not necessarily ours or DSM's.

2 new products came to market very recently and it looks like PXS could have supplied the FF for them.

[bareknee] 23/5/2023 22:11

Nearly the end of May, so not far off being five months into being responsible for supplying Fruitflow to customers and a quick check shows :-

Simply Supplements ( Blood Pressure Formula ) out of stock ( and have been a while )
Holland Barrett out of stock of FF+ ( not sure how long for )
Healthspan out of stock ( Circulease ) on their website, expected to be back in stock in August.
Provexis have, I presume, stock ( doesn't say otherwise on the website )

Circulease from Healthspan is in stock on Amazon though, as is FF+ from PXS via Amazon.

Granted, some teething problems on taking over the distribution were to be expected, but it is currently looking like a balls up, not necessarily by Ford, he could have been let down by DSM, but not being able to supply regular customers, however small, isn't a great start.

Obviously, if you wanted to be 100% positive about the situation you could argue that our FF stock has been low because ByHealth have got first dabs on it, which may even be correct, but it's not a good look.

BB

[gix er] 22/5/2023 06:57

winner, I would like to hope that we got an update alongside the next RNS telling us that the stock has been sorted. But.............

BB, Unfortunate but normally true.

[winner31] 18/5/2023 15:27

Anyone think we’ll get a May trading update like the old days ! or is that to much to ask for with the huge changes in the company and our income, we can only hope .

[bareknee] 15/5/2023 12:55

Haha - that made me chuckle Gixer.

You'd think, after all these years, that expecting Ford to unnecessarily ( from a legal perspective ) put meat on the bones when it comes to, relatively minor, operational issues just isn't going to happen.

If we take out a loan of some kind to cover cashflow, he'll report that, and obviously if he goes down the equity fund raising route that'll be known, but I'm not expecting much apart from that till September ... though it'd be great to be wrong about that.

[gix er] 15/5/2023 08:04

Winner, Unfortunately the RNS goes on to say...
" A further announcement will be made by the Company at the appropriate time."

Roughly translated means.

Unless the company needs to inform the market of something significant we say nothing.
:)

[winner31] 14/5/2023 17:01

6 weeks and counting , “The outsourced manufacturer of Fruitflow II SD (Fruitflow in spray dried powder form, the primary form of Fruitflow which is sold) is currently running some long-term stability tests on the product, with a possible view to an extension to the product's existing approved shelf life, and the results of these tests are expected in the coming weeks.“"........................................”;The Company will be in a better position to judge how best to manage its future inventory requirements (which can be met from either: (i) DSM's existing Fruitflow inventory; or (ii) a new Fruitflow production run) in the coming weeks once it has a clearer picture of: (i) the likely demand from the Company's actual and prospective Fruitflow customers for the next 12 months and beyond, to include By-Health; and (ii) the outcome of the stability tests on the existing Fruitflow inventory. “

[bareknee] 09/5/2023 22:51

Re "Why has DSM given up their contract?"

Two possible reasons come to mind :-

1. Extending on similar terms was deemed by DSM to be not worth their while and they chose to focus their capital elsewhere

2. Ian Ford saw a bigger opportunity by going it alone and/or played hardball with DSM

If, after all these years, we finally become profitable in the next year or two, then I'd agree with Gixer that he'll have done a great job. But the new agreement with DSM is really nothing like the old one, and is like comparing apples to pears

[winner31] 09/5/2023 20:10

I wonder if this is connected to Dsm’s interest in FF,

[gix er] 09/5/2023 18:37

The agreement with DSM was due to end at the end of last year and a new agreement, starting on 1-1-2023 was negotiated.

DSM should still be taking the same amount of Fruitflow through the Premix and Market-Ready Solutions supply agreement and more if the new partnership with DSM relating to the gut microbiome patent takes off.
Only difference is, PXS will now be selling Fruitflow to DSM.
Profit should be materially ahead of the net share of the profit that would have accrued to Provexis with like for like sales and margins under the 2010 Alliance Agreement.

Time will tell but it looks like I.F got us a good deal.

[nestoframpers] 09/5/2023 13:33

Jam tomorrow , oh wait a minute the pot is empty.

I.F is not CEO material PXS should not be here now. Why has DSM given up their contract?

[redprince] 05/4/2023 11:20

winner31 i was thinking the same!The words "truly global" were what made me think that
however they have been talking to global brand owners for getting on for 15 years now!

The difference now is that we have complete autonomy to make the right deal now whereas before we were relying on DSM to do it for us and i beleive for reasons i gave in my above post that that was making things more difficult than the position we we find ourselves in now.

Here is hoping anyway!

[winner31] 05/4/2023 11:00

Rp from the hints in IFs update it would not surprise me if they are back talking again , either would be very welcome ,there’s not that many truly global players in this field .

[redprince] 05/4/2023 09:28

I do hope that now PXS have control over sales that IF will have complete control over granting exclusivity to a major player in a given territory.This was the reason why Unilever or CC walked away all those years ago - a fact confirmed to me by a former director.
It is almost certainly the same reason why MM dropped the shot format of FF at the last moment - again i know this was a major issue from talking to the lady who was organising the marketing campaign for the shot format.
I wonder if DSM's large corporate structure with layers of decision makers required to
get a sign off on a particular deal and the changing of faces over the years have all contributed to failing to sign a major player after all these years?
At least from now we should be able to get much closer to the answers as we are not dealing with DSM's confidential agreement.

[gix er] 05/4/2023 08:19

I find it unlikely that DSM was holding more stock than they were likely to sell so what has changed?

We have committed to purchase around half the stock due to our current cash position and if we get an extended shelf life then that de risks the purchase of the remaining stock while we 1."ascertain the likely demand from these actual and prospective customers" and 2."raise further equity finance, or potentially new loan finance"

Any extension to the inventory handover is going to be beneficial to us as we will be receiving income from the stock we already have and any funds required will be considerably less if the remaining stock can be held by a third party on consignment.

I think IF is just being overly cautious rather than any real reduction in demand.

[winner31] 04/4/2023 17:11

I do think DSM took their eye off the ball with ff, I don’t know but it seemed to me there was a lack of drive to get the sales needed to make it successful,that of course was before the new microbiota function and it seems they might have found new enthusiasm to get ff out to the masses, I was intrigued that Ian chose to mention a renewed interest from a “truly global” player, but as someone has already said that’s another carrot to dangle for the next 7 years but we can all hope.