Besides all the new and interesting contacts we made, there is also a nice piece about Cercam in the “Hout Wereld Magazine”.
We are happy to share it with you.
Now we are preparing ourselves for the European Coating Show in Nuremberg, March 27-30, 2023. We hope to see you there!
Fungus protects wood
A participant unknown at first glance is Cercam. The company was called Woodchem until recently, and that name will ring a bell with more people. "Among other things, we do wood preservatives," Rick Schipper of the company explains. "But we are also active in the agro-world and are focusing more and more on natural, non-chemical products. Therefore, after thirty years, we wanted to replace the name Woodchem with the more neutral Cercam, which stands for certified products to protect crops and materials."
Cercam comes with a new wood protection, Presta Biofinish, a typical example of such an all-natural product. "In fact, you're talking about 'bio-stain.' Its action is based on the properties of a fungus, the aureobasidium pullulans to be precise. It's a patented Dutch invention that researchers at TNO have been working on for years. They discovered it by accident. Poles standing in the forest became covered with this fungus. However, the fungus did not attack the wood, but rather protected it."
The trick was to incorporate this knowledge into a scalable wood protection product. This has now been achieved: the fungus is nourished by a linseed oil that simultaneously also acts as a water repellent and penetrates deep into the wood. Cercam has taken on the sales and sales of this product in Europe and is looking for representatives in all European countries. Schipper: "Basically, we supply our products as semi-finished products to the industry. So, in this case, to paint manufacturers. So we would like to come into contact with them, for example at the BouwBeurs. But we will also be at the European Coating Show in Nuremberg, in March of this year. But if we can convince the paint manufacturers' customers, that's also good. Ultimately, they have to apply it."
Mold that protects wood from mold That still requires some explanation. "Definitely," confirmed Schipper. "We are well aware of that, Advantage is that the product has proven itself in practice because it has been applied to numerous buildings and objects at home and abroad for some ten years. We have prepared ourselves thoroughly to be able to give a good answer to all questions."
