American horses to get a Kiwi boost

SUCCESS STORY: Rotorua agri-biotech company BioBrew's liquid supplement for horses, EquiBrew, is set to hit US shelves later this year. PHOTO/FILE

A "BOOTSTRAP" Rotorua agri-biotech company has made its first steps to sell a probiotic microbial horse supplement to the lucrative US equine market.

The liquid supplement, marketed under the name EquiBrew, will be manufactured and distributed in a joint venture with a Denver-based company.

BioBrew co-founder Andre Prassinos, of Rotorua, whose company manufactures EquiBrew for the domestic equine market, said the product had the potential to be sold to millions of owners and trainers of pleasure and sport horses, racehorses and working horses throughout the United States.

"There are 250,000 horses in Colorado alone, and around nine million in the United States, so we are taking on a pretty big market."

The fermented microbial mix of molasses, lactic acid bacteria, yeast and kelp has proved popular in New Zealand for helping calm and improve horse behaviour, he saYS.

A liquid supplement is a relative novelty in the US where most probiotic supplements are sold freeze dried.

"Our product has the advantage that it is sold as a high quality fresh liquid which is attractive to horse owners," he said.

Mr Prassinos said the company would have a majority shareholding in the joint venture and retain all intellectual property rights.

"It will still be our company and our brand, and we will continue to develop the microbial isolates here in New Zealand.

"We will provide the technology and ingredients for the Denver company to manufacture and distribute the end product."

The chance to break into the US market was a huge opportunity.

"We're a small bootstrap start-up with a small resource, operating on monthly cash flow, about to make headway internationally - so we're excited.

"We believe we have the finest probiotic in the world and we will accept any challenge to prove ourselves wrong."

A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the two parties and Mr Prassinos will fly to Denver shortly to begin due diligence and cement the deal. He estimates EquiBrew will be on shop shelves in the US mid-year. It is stocked by 40 Kiwi retailers.