OUR GRASS ROOTS

The Champon family brokerage firm is an importer/exporters of essential oils, spices, and aromatic chemicals. Louis Champon, inventor of Champon Millennium Chemical products and founder of the company, was schooled in the family business for twelve years. While traveling around the world, he studied essential oils, learning how they affected flavor and smell, why they reacted the way they did, and what made them smell and taste the way they do. He studied the chemistry of each oil and researched their respective impact in the flavor and fragrance industry. In 1982, Louis left his father's company and started developing natural animal repellents and insect controls. All of his products were based on the active ingredients found in certain essential oils. These ingredients are called Natural Chemicals.

Louis Champon developed the first product of what was to become a full range of all-natural Animal Repellents and Insect Controls for household use. In 1990, he received six EPA registrations, and three more in 1996.

In the early 1990s, testing of products developed initially for household insect control was broadened to explore applications as pesticides / insecticides including for preplant soil treatment. Samples were sent to scientists at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for testing, after company results showed that Champon's Insect Control Concentrate (ICC) killed insects and fungi in the soil. Preliminary test results from the USDA in 1996 and 1997 confirmed ICC as a possible alternative to methyl bromide, with a 99.9% kill rate on Fusarium Oxysporum. The product, renamed "Dazitol" in fall 1998, is 100% natural, EPA-registered, has a Waiver of Tolerance, and is Patented.

The discovery that Natural Chemical extracts from plants could replace toxic synthetic chemicals in conventional agriculture led Mr. Champon with his partner, the late Ralph Devine, into an aggressive research program with laboratory, greenhouse, small field, and commercial field studies conducted by University of Florida scientists and private research consultants. Simultaneous, comparative studies between Dazitol and methyl bromide were conducted, including on-field testing that demonstrated that Dazitol was a technically and environmentally feasible replacement of methyl bromide as a preplant soil treatment.

 

In 2001, in the United States, the phase out of methyl bromide as a preplant soil fumigant was pushed back four years to 2005. This was permitted under terms of the Clean Air Act and the Montreal Protocols. The supply chain of distributors and end users breathed a deep sigh of relief, and the market lost a sense of imminent need for a technically and commercially feasible alternative to methyl bromide.

 

The softening of the market led Champon Millennium Chemicals to a decision to focus its resources outside the United States. In 2003, international headquarters were established in Bordeaux, France.

 

Champon products were taken directly to growers in the Middle East and N. Africa. Over the next several years Dazitol became proven in the marketplace through repeating on-field testing, initial commercial sales and repeat orders.

 

In the U.S., Champon’s EPA-registered natural chemical products obtained organic certification from the Washington State Department of Agriculture.

 

Meanwhile in the U.S., highly toxic alternatives to methyl bromide that do not deplete the ozone have more-or-less come and gone from the marketplace, because they don’t work.  Stockpiled supplies of methyl bromide in the United States continue to dwindle, and in 2008 the Montreal Protocols placed additional health and safety restrictions on methyl bromide application and usage that make it even more costly for growers in the U.S.

 

Champon Millennium Chemicals evaluated its opportunities in mid-2008 and decided it was now time to re-focus marketing and sales efforts in the United States while continuing rapid global expansion.  This decision was based on three factors:

• • Proven efficacy and market acceptance globally

  • Dwindling stockpiles and availability of methyl bromide in the U.S.

  • Marketplace dissatisfaction with the efficacy of the few well-marketed methyl bromide alternatives from multinational companies

 

The company is now establishing a distribution network in the United States.