PORTLAND, OR — (Marketwire) — 04/18/12 — Trellis Earth Products, Inc. (OTCQX: TREL), a leading manufacturer of sustainable bioplastic finished goods, today announced that it has launched a marketing campaign to show Seattle-based coffee companies that its USDA BioPreferred, ASTM Certified Compostable cutlery is available for delivery at prices that match conventional plastic cutlery. This can enable coffee companies that are required to conform to King County and Seattle–s metropolitan civic laws a cost-neutral proposition for the first time in the plastic cutlery industry.
Trellis sells its bioplastic cutlery via major distributors including Bunzl and Sysco to customers including Trader Joe–s and Restaurant Depot. The Company sells over 30 SKUs of bioplastics cutlery covering a range of premium, lightweight, bagged, colored and compostable items. Trellis has been selling in Seattle for five years, making the city an obvious market for its new PLA products, which establish a new lower price point for food service disposable cutlery that is certified compostable.
“Given the progressive environmental stance in King Country and some of the biggest coffee companies in America being headquartered in Seattle, this intersection of regulation and commerce creates a perfect opportunity for us to present our market of bioplastic cutlery to major national purchasers,” said Trellis founder and CEO, Bill Collins. “Seattle is home to Starbucks and Seattle–s Best Coffee, as well as hundreds of independent coffee shops.”
The Company has announced plans to build a bioplastics cutlery and deliware manufacturing plant in Oregon later in 2012.
“We–ll have potential capacity for 100 million units of cutlery per month and 100 million condiment cups or 100 million clamshell units, upon completion of our financing and deployment of manufacturing assets planned for the second half of 2012 and into 2013,” added Collins.
Trellis recently completed customizing a 100% corn plastic blend to create new PLA (Poly Lactic Acid, a type of compostable plastic resin) cutlery that lowers the costs for forks, knives, and spoons which use no oil or petroleum as ingredients. This cutlery is being offered by Trellis directly to regional coffee companies for the same price as regular plastic cutlery.
“Go Green For Free” for coffee companies and delis in cities such as Seattle means they can convert from regular plastic to Trellis Earth® brand sustainable corn cutlery without paying any increase in costs,” said Collins.
“We–ve passed the point of no return. The industry is quickly realizing there is no reason not to switch and every reason to switch to Trellis Earth® brand cutlery and deliware.”
“The fact that we–ve committed to make our cost neutral products here in Oregon, means Made is USA and Trellis Earth® are soon to become synonymous,” he said, adding, “because PLA cutlery is mandated in Seattle, we–re targeting that vertical as one among many, as we implement our product strategy for U.S. manufacturing.”
The Company–s PLA cutlery was recently certified by a USDA designated laboratory as 100% biomass based, and was declared eligible for the USDA BioPreferred® labeling program. The Company has published the compostability study for its new PLA cutlery on its website, documenting ASTM 6400 standards compliance. The study can be found at: .
The Trellis Earth “Go Green For Free” Seattle-based coffee companies campaign is being managed by Clayton Oswald, VP Sales and Distribution.
Trellis Earth Products, Inc. (“Trellis”) is a leading supplier of branded bioplastics products to the foodservice industry throughout the United States. The Company–s products are made primarily from bio-based renewable materials such as plant starches, allowing for a reduction in the ecological impact of food service disposables. Founded in 2006, Trellis makes both compostable and sustainable/bio-based products such as food containers, cutlery, shopping bags and trash liners.
For more information about Trellis Earth® products, please visit
Learn more at .
The Trellis Earth logo is available at
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results described within the forward-looking statements. Risk factors that could contribute to such differences include those matters more fully disclosed in the Company–s reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking information provided herein represents the Company–s estimates as of the date of the press release, and subsequent events and developments may cause the Company–s estimates to change. The Company specifically disclaims any obligation to update the forward-looking information in the future. Therefore, this forward-looking information should not be relied upon as representing the Company–s estimates of its future financial performance as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
CONTACT:
Trellis Earth Products, Inc.
Gary Miles
Public Relations
971 400-9011 cell
503 582-1300 Ext. 225
Investor Relations Contact
Mr. Andrew Haag
Managing Partner
IRTH Communications, LLC
Tel: +1-866-976-IRTH (4784)
E-Mail:
Trellis Earth Products, Inc
9215 SW Ridder Rd, Suite D
Wilsonville, OR 97070
Phone: 503-582-1300
Fax: 503-582-1313
Internet: