Sales fell by more than a third at bioplastics business Biome as the company warned on ‘regulatory difficulties’ suffered by two of its largest customers.
The Southampton-based company reported revenues of £2.3m for the first six months of the year, a drop of around 36% compared to the previous year, while losses jumped by 76% to £1.2m over the period. Its shares sunk 11% to 6.2p in the opening minutes of trade on Friday.
Biome put the sales fall down to a coffee pods client, whose new product required additional laboratory testing by the certifying authority, leading to delays in the business’s sales campaigns and a slowdown revenue uptake in the latter months of the year.
Biome, which also builds radio frequency (RF) systems, said it “continues to work to resolve the end-customer difficulties encountered”, adding that the rest of the year “is expected to show an improvement on that revenue performance and the Board expects to see a continuation of that growth trend in 2025.”
CEO Paul Mines said: “The challenges encountered by the Bioplastics business in the first half are progressing towards resolution, albeit some hurdles remain to achieve the revenue run-rate we expect in the near term.”
The company completed a £1.1m fundraise earlier in September in a bid to shore up its cash reserves. Its stock has fallen by more than 90% since the start of the year.