Premier Produces Ethically & Religiously Compliant Plastics 

Before You Go

By Anthony Birritteri, Editor-in-Chief On May 27, 2015

By While world leaders have been attempting to bring peace to the Middle East for decades, a Fairfield-based plastics company has received – in this topsy-turvy world – the blessings of both Jewish and Muslim religions. When adding the rest of the health conscious world to the mix, then Premier Plastics International, Inc. is sitting on a business that has the potential of realizing revenues of $200 million in just two years … “and that’s a conservative figure,” says Walter Guarino, company president (who made this comment weeks prior to Premier negotiating its first major deal with online grocer, Tal Depot).

The product that is causing this potential revolution is plastic bowls. The selling point is that Premier’s bowls are one part per 40 billion pure and free of contaminants such as animal stearates (fat), Bisphenol A (BPA) and other ingredients deemed harmful.

Guarino explains that animal stearates are not found in the plastic polymers that make the products, but they are used to help remove plastic products from molds during the production process. These fats can leach into the product and into our food and bodies. Among the major concern with these stearates is that they can come from the carcasses of diseased animals (think: mad cow disease) or the carcasses of animals that were euthanized with deadly chemicals.

“Premier products are pure. We are the only standard for plastic purity,” Guarino says. The company has developed and copyrighted the Ethically and Religiously Compliant (ERC) protocol for the production process.

Company founders, Manny Bolk, who spent decades in the aerospace industry, and his wife Constance, a plastics industry veteran, spent more than a million dollars developing the process. The Bolks acquired a Fatwa, or religious mandate, from the Al-Azhar in Egypt, which said that all Muslims should look for ERC products (in the US, the Muslim market is valued at $98 billion). At the same time, the ERC process is Orthodox Union Kosher certified.

Guarino says that opportunities to expand into other product lines are astounding. They can be: the medical market – IV bags, catheters, tubing, eye droppers, capsules; sports – mouth guards; children’s toys; pet products – plastic dog bones; and an expanding kitchenware line – plastic utensils, for example.

The obstacle Premier faces at the present moment is creating inventory to meet the potential product demand. That is why the company is seeking to raise between $2 million and $7 million.

Premier Group International is made up of five affiliates companies, all tied to the business. They are: The ERC Group LLC; Premier Purity Plastics Manufacturing and Molding; Premier Classic Products; Premier Specialty Polymers; and PurOlvn Polymers.

Asked why no other company had thought of the pure plastic concept before, Guarino says, “I don’t think anyone has ever thought of this as a chronic problem. Nobody is on top of this like we are. I can go into a courtroom with boxes and boxes of data to support our proposition. … The cumulative use of contaminated plastics, over time, is scary.”

 

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