Company Update

Giridhar Pai – India’s pioneer of stored product insect pest monitoring in the food industry: Our Managing Partner, Giridhar Pai, is the pioneer of stored product insect pest (SIP) monitoring in India, having begun it in the Indian food industry and introducing it to the Indian pest control industry. At the start of his career in 1995 as a food safety manager at AVT McCormick Ingredients Limited (AVT McCormick), a leading spice exporter, he initiated India’s first and to-date largest pheromone trap monitoring programme for tracking SIP populations at the company’s warehouses. He quickly became an expert in using pheromone traps for monitoring cigarette beetles, flour beetles and warehouse moths. He used Indian and foreign-made pheromone traps and lures. He successfully established the monitoring programmes at AVT McCormick as an early warning system for SIP presence, reducing insect incidence, pest treatment costs and product losses. After Giridhar Pai joined Pest Control India Private Limited (PCI) in 2000, he launched the Trece Storgard insect monitoring systems of the United States of America in India. He introduced stored product insect monitoring for food processors. Over the past three decades, the Indian food and pest control industries have benefitted from the availability of various pheromone trapping systems in India for monitoring and detecting common SIP species. SIP pheromone monitoring is simple, inexpensive, and easy to detect insect presence in food products, storage and processing. By 2020, Giridhar Pai found that customers could not easily purchase SIP pheromone traps in India. Though customers were seeking the Storgard Insect Monitoring system range, there was no Indian distributor for the products. Direct import of the products by customers was impractical due to low purchase volumes, the need to bear shipping costs, and customs duties for any purchase quantity. Sensing the opportunity for reputed SIP pheromone traps in India, Giridhar Pai re-established contact with Trece, Inc. of USA and re-initiated the import of the Storgard insect monitoring system range to India starting in 2024. As a result of Giridhar Pai’s pioneering industry leadership, the Indian food processing and pest control industries can again access the world’s best Storgard insect monitoring system to detect and estimate stored-product insect pest populations in the Indian food industry supply chains. United States of America’s Trece Inc’s Storgard Insect Monitoring Systems: The leading global supplier of pheromone traps and lures, Trece, Inc of USA created the Storgard Insect Monitoring Systems for SIPs in the nineties of the twentieth century. STORGARD pheromone traps are an early-warning system for detecting potentially damaging SIPs during food processing, storage, transport and retailing of foods and other products vulnerable to SIP infestation. Using Storgard pheromone traps for SIP monitoring makes it possible to reduce losses and ensure the safety and quality of stored foods, leading to time and money savings. STORGARD has been among the global pest management industry’s leading SIP monitoring systems for over three decades, offering various traps, pheromone lures, food attractants and grain probes. As STORGARD products are species-specific and sensitive even to low SIP populations, they are useful in achieving zero insect populations in wheat and rice milling, baking, snack food, pet food and numerous other food processing and storage facilities. STORGARD insect monitoring systems provide an edge in the battle against SIP moths and beetles, which are present through the supply chain of human, animal, and pet foods. Storgard products are ideal for early SIP detection and monitoring in varied environments such as raw material storage, transportation, processing, finished goods storage, distribution, and retailing. Due to their highly evolved nature, SIPs persist in the global food supply chains. Monitoring them through highly effective products like Storgard pheromone traps is essential for food safety. Storgard product availability in India from 2024: Due to its managing partner’s familiarity with the products, GPAL has carefully evaluated the Storgard range and imported in January 2024 the products that Indian customers were familiar with during 2000-2020, after which the product range became unavailable in India. Indian food industry customers are most familiar with the Storgard Dome Trap kits, which are very useful for monitoring: ∙Cigarette Beetles (CB) (Lasioderma serricorne)∙Confused (CFB) (Tribolium confusum)∙Red Flour Beetles (Tribolium castaneum)∙Tobacco moth (TM) (Ephestia elutella) Starting January 2024, GPAL will initially supply Dome Trap Kits and pheromone lures for CB, CFB, and RFB in India, and only the pheromone lures for the TM. We are confident that the pheromone traps and lures for CB, CFB, RFB, and TM shall meet the basic SIP monitoring requirements of the Indian food processing industry. GPAL plans for Storgard stored product insect monitoring:GPAL aims to keep adding innovative pest management solutions such as SIP pheromone traps and lures, which are non-toxic pest management options. Through its pan-India distributor network, GPAL is making the Trece Storgard insect monitoring system range available across India to the food industry, pet food industry and pest control industry. The food and pest control industries will greatly benefit by monitoring SIP populations in processing, storage, and transport and have an assured source for purchasing Storgard in India through Giridhar Pai Associates LLP. As SIP adults and larvae, the active life stages, are tiny and not easily visible, Storgard pheromone traps are the ideal solution for continuous monitoring of SIP presence and populations. Giridhar Pai Associates LLP’s plans for the Storgard range include offering the pheromone traps and lures against other SIPs listed below. ∙Khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium)∙Warehouse beetle (Trogoderma variabile)∙Almond Moth (Cadra cautella)∙Sawtoothed Grain Beetle (Orzyphaeilus surinamensis)∙Merchant Grain Beetle (Oryzaephilus mercator)∙Lesser Grain Borer (Rhyzopertha dominica) Summary: GPAL continues pioneering efforts by re-launching India’s Trece Storgard insect monitoring systems range in 2024. The Indian food and pest control industries greatly benefit from the availability of pheromone traps against a range of common stored-product insect pests commonly found through the supply chain. The current practice of routine fumigation and other SIP treatments without correlation to the SIP population can be improved by SIP monitoring with Storgard insect monitoring systems. SIP monitoring is a sustainable practice that will lead to reduced pesticide use and

When we recently introduced the black FLYght One to customers, we didn’t change just the color of the trap but far more. Here is the three-year story of FLYght One, India’s first UV LED flycatcher. The beginning We developed the first FLYght trap prototypes in late 2019. After confirming the design would work, we produced evaluation samples in early 2020, just before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemic-induced lockdowns slowed product development, and we waited till July 2020 to launch FLYght One, the first Pestroniks Innovations Pte. Ltd. product. FLYght versus fluorescent tube flycatchers We made many changes to the flycatcher design through the enormous design flexibility that FLYght One’s eight LEDs allowed us. As we were free from housing three fluorescent tubes and the ballast common to second-generation flycatchers, we could significantly reduce the size of our UV LED flycatcher. Like any other product, the FLYght range also has evolved with the FLYght Duo that arrived in 2021, having improved features over the FLYght One. Over the past year, to improve the look, feel, and performance of the FLYght One, we returned to the drawing board to reconfigure it for enhanced housefly capture. Using the feedback from our customers, we re-engineered the FLYght One to the new unit now available to customers. The old versus new FLYght One As we retained the product’s functional features, both FLYght One versions share some features, as described below. Further, we have highlighted in our description the new features of the FLYght One beginning January 2023. What remains the same in both versions Metal housing: We continue to use steel in FLYght One trap which makes them sturdy and rugged compared to traditional plastic-bodied flycatchers that are prone to damage and have high parts replacement costs. UV LEDs and bio-VE+: Both trap versions have eight X 1W LEDs and a bio-VE+ board. The bio-VE+ board is a bio-Visual Enhancer that reflects the UV from the LEDs after enhancing the wavelengths and intensity of such light. The blue glow emanating from the bio-VE+ board of all FLYght traps contains houseflies attracting UV wavelengths. Glue board : Both the old and new FLYght Ones are usable with the universal glue board that is 418 mm X 283 mm. Flies hidden from view : Like in all FLYght traps, the new FLYght One’s glueboard at the back of the trap is hidden from view, and people near the trap can’t see any of the houseflies it has trapped other than by taking the glueboard out of the trap. What is different in the new FLYght One Color: The all-black FLYght One stands out in any setting in contrast to the all-white FLYght One we made earlier, leading us to proudly introduce our ‘Machine-in-Black (MIB) Contrasting colors attract houseflies more, and the black exterior of the FLYght One juxtaposed with the white color of its bio-VE+ board has higher housefly attraction than a white bio-VE+ board inside a white FLYght One. Size: The new FLYght One has a length X width X depth of 476 X 237 X 98 mm versus the 425 X 196 X 112 mm of the old FLYght One. The FLYght One is now longer and wider than its older version. The new trap is heavier by 500 gm. at 2.75 kg. against the 2.25 kg. of its previous version. However, the FLYght One is still very light compared to other flycatchers in the market, and a technician can easily lift it with one hand for installation and maintenance. Wider bio-VE+ board : The bio-VE+ board of the new FLYght One is 2X the width of the old one. We are still researching whether the wider bio-VE+ board attracts more houseflies to the trap. Board position : The new FLYght One allows the insertion of the bio-VE+ board horizontally and the glue board vertically, letting users make board changes easily and quickly. We have simplified glueboard use and position by having a single slot for the glueboard at the back of the trap. In the old FLYght One, users had to make two pieces of the glueboard and insert them into the two slots of the trap. Thus, our customers now save time they would have spent readying two pieces of the universal glueboard for use in a FLYght One trap. More and different housefly entry holes : The old FLYght One has 110 round holes through which houseflies enter the trap. The new FLYght One has 226 hexagonal holes through which houseflies enter it. Our research has shown a difference in catch rates of hexagonal trap openings compared to round openings. Pricing : We offer the new FLYght at a 19% lesser price than the older FLYght One, helping customers benefit from an overall lesser purchase price and the low cost of ownership. As the pioneers of India’s UV LED fly catcher segment, we have interacted with hundreds of customers and introduced them to our novel technology. We continually improve our user experience by simplifying our products to make them easy to install and maintain. For example, a user can install FLYght traps in less than five minutes as they only have to remove the release paper of the glueboards before powering the trap for the first time. We call it ‘plug and flay’ technology in which our customers plug their FLYght flycatchers and flay houseflies in the premises. Interacting with customers in Sri Lanka, we have found that the rising electricity prices make the FLYght range of flycatchers more attractive to customers looking for lower electricity costs for housefly monitoring. We are confident that 2023 will be the inflection year in which hundreds of Indian customers will switch from second-generation flycatchers with fluorescent tubes to Pestroniks Innovation Pte. Ltd.’s third-generation UV LED flycatchers.