Executive summary

I - Ressources…………………………………………………………..

I.I-Algal collect…...………………………………………………………..…...
I.II-Algal transport………………………………………………………………..
I.III-Algal storage……………………………………………………………….

II - Product transformation costs……………………………………

III - Potential customers……………………………………………

III.I Bioplastics customers………………………………………………………...
III.II Chemical parts customers……………………………………………

IV - Market prices and competitiveness………………………………………………………

V - Profitability……………………………………………

VI - Our alternative……………………………………………………...

VI.I-The product……………………………………………………………
VI.II-Brand identity……………………………………………………………
VI.III-Business process…………………………………………………

VII - Sources………………………………………………………

I - Ressources

Obviously, we need to find an effective way to pick up Ulva spp as our raw material.
We also need to know if we could have the ability to collect it for steady periods.
Some precautions must be taken into account.

I.I - Algal collect

Some municipalities directly impacted by green tides already invested in the algal collection on the coast.
However, as we can see on this histogram which represents the algal volume in m3 collected per year and per municipalities referring to CEVA,
the raw material collected is still highly varied.

So it could be difficult for our team to estimate the amount of available algal for the transformation process and commercialization.

Because of the H2S leaching, which is toxic for humans, all these procedures must be treated with care and safety measures.
This gas is lethal for humans over an exposition of 1400 mg/m3, therefore before the act, we need to consider risks as required in article L.4121-1 and L. 4121-2 from the labor code and more specifically article R. 4412-5 about chemical risks.
Once hazards are identified, we need to take precautions to protect employees against these, referring to articles R. 4121-1 and R. 4412-11 from the labor code.
Of course, we could delegate this task to a private company that would have to take care of the risks. In terms of price, the cost for an algal collect is about 10 to €30 per ton.

I.II-Algal transport

Then, after the algal has been collected, we need to find a way to transport it to storage. According to the document “Activité de transport des algues vertes” from Inspection du Travail des Côtes-d’Armor, there are also some rules about safety because of the flammable side of the H2S gas.
Private companies are also needed. We estimate the cost of transporting the algae to our laboratory at about 266.81 euros for 40 tons, which represents 6.70 euros.ton-1.

I.III-Algal storage

As tackled in the preceding paragraphs, due to the toxicity of H2S gas, a couple of restrictions must be applied to our process, storage included.
So we can stock Alga as long as the H2S concentration’s safety device does not exceed 14 mg.cm-3 for a 15 minutes exposure.

I.VI-Procedure’s costs

To summarize, concerning the budget for alga collection, transport and storage, we have to count about 10 to €30.ton to collect, about €6.70 to transport toxic material to the laboratory, and considering the storage is directly built in the transformation lab, we will consider it as 0.
We can provide €27.00 per ton, at the decrease.
We didn't include labor force, potential construction vehicles, fuel, taxes… because of the difficulty to get an estimation of all of these parameters.

II - Product transformation costs

The scientific process is a considerable part of our budget, we have to consider fees that it will generate if we raise our project to the corporate level.
This year for our project, we dedicated €8865.00 budget only for the scientific process.
However, they are not comparable with prices we could get as an industry.

III - Potential customers

All the process is done, and the final material production accomplished, we have to determine our potential customers.
Which industries need what we produced?
We studied the industrial market in our domain and determined 2 types of potential lines of research.

III.I Bioplastics customers

Let’s focus on our first commercialization option:
bioplastics industries, which is a large and open market that is growing because of the companies’ empowerment on environmental issues such as plastic uses.
On the following chart, we can understand how massive the bioplastics utilization and applications are.
It does represent about 2,1085 million of tons, all market segments included, with a predominance of (rigid and flexible) packaging.

Actual bioplastic utilization is already important, however, an augmentation of about 20% is provided in the next 5 following years.

It may represent 2,44 million of tons in 2022. The previous chart also shows the market opening, with different domains of uses: packaging, textiles, consumer goods…

III.II Chemical parts customers

Basically, this material is used in the oil industry, alimentation, and agriculture.
In 2020, sulfur consumption is 61.88 million tonnes, including 6.8 million tonnes in the United States and about 2.5 million tonnes in Western Europe.
The following chart shows sulfur consumption in the world.

What about France?
The production in 2017 was about 448k tonnes, used or exported in Belgium and Italy.
France also imports this material from Germany, Norway, Spain, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

VI - Market prices and competitiveness

Once these steps are completed, we have to study offers that are already on the market to conclude on our potential competitiveness.
We found some data on material consumption and other producers.

VI.I Regarding plastics

A “conventional” plastic from the petrochemical industry is sold about 1,5€.kg, or a cost of 1500€.ton, that is right under bioplastics’ costs that are from 2€.kg to 8€.kg either from 2000€.ton to 8000€.ton, a significant difference of almost 6500€.ton.
Will consumers be ready to spend a little bit more only to buy household consumption with packaging made of bioplastics?
However, referring to the previous part III.I, bioplastics production, and commercialization is an effective growing market, so we have to consider and anticipate a potential likely interest of large companies with significant financial resources. These companies could become major competitors.

VI.II Chemical parts

Sulfur major production comes from country othethan France as we can see on the following map :

However, European countries are not producing so much of this chemical product and have to trade with major producers such as the United States or China.
Dealing with import/export isn’t ecological due to CO2 emission, we would probably find European customers that are looking for a more ecological process of consumption.

V - Profitability

Insofar as we would like to upgrade our project to a startup level, we have just seen that it could not be realizable because of non-profitability.
Indeed, all accumulated costs would not be amortized by our selling prices. It would also demand important logistics, marketing, communication and financial management we cannot afford.

Our purpose is still looking for a method to commercialize products we would be able to produce with a well-balanced financial plan. Hence, we were thinking about an alternative.

VI - Our alternative

This idea came up during a Zoom meeting, how could we generate benefits without the most costly part of our project ? As a first step, we thought about outsourcing.
We could work with other companies to make the transformation procedure less expensive. And then, what about being a subcontractor ?

I.I-The product

Other companies already use algae to produce consumable goods.
Our team is working with modified bacteria using special skills and techniques. So we could sell kits to these companies, containing our modified bacterias with documentation.

What will contain our kit?

The main product is, of course, the modified bacterias.
Transformed in our laboratory, these bacterias will be contained in Petri dishes lined with agarose gel.
A user manual will contain all information about the product and the brand.
Our kit will also contain a personal key to get access to a private page on our website.
This page is useful to get digital data such as information included in the user manual on digital media.

After all estimations, we can provide a final price of €125,83 per unity

VI.II-Brand identity

To finalize, we created our brand identity.
We work on a name that represents our domain and combines synthetic biology and bacterias: Bactilis was chosen as our brand name

Then, we designed a logo and added it to mockups to feel the render.
The following pictures present our logo (that uses sea and alga’s colors shades), a packaging mockup that represents the way our product could be expedited, and then, a mockup concerning the user manual that contains all instructions about the way our product should be used.

VI.III-Business process

To sum up our business process, we resume it in 4 steps on the following diagram.

Sources :

CEVA Wikipedia page CEVA homepage “Activité de transport des algues vertes” from Inspection du Travail des Côtes-d’Armor “Activité dans les plateformes de stockage / compostage en présence d’algues vertes” from Document réalisé par : Inspection du Travail des Côtes-d’Armor Figaro’s article about procedure prices Bioplastic’s production evolution Article about bioplastics Bioplastics utilisation Bioplastics prices Sulfur data Transport information