Fellow parishioner Phil Villers has a strong social-justice side, having volunteered for years with Amnesty International and similar organizations. He also runs businesses. Bella English recently wrote about his latest venture for the Boston Globe, describing how the for-profit company benefits low-income people around the world.
Writes English, “Phil Villers has founded several high-tech companies, but the one he oversees now offers something much more basic: a way to alleviate hunger in developing countries. GrainPro, Inc., which Villers runs out of Concord, makes airtight, impermeable bags of polyvinylchloride, similar to the material used by the Israeli Army to protect its tanks in the desert heat.
“The bags are critical because about one-fourth of grain products grown in developing countries or shipped to them — rice, peanuts, maize, seeds, beans — are lost to insects or rodents, or rot in cloth or jute storage bags.
“GrainPro’s ‘cocoons’ are made of the same material as the company’s bags, and … can reduce grain losses from 25 percent to less than 1 percent, Villers says. [The] company concentrates on hot and humid countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. …
“ ‘We eliminate the need for pesticides, and we can protect food supplies against all kinds of calamities such as typhoons and earthquakes,’ Villers says.
“During Typhoon Haiyan, which recently devastated the Philippines, the rice, cocoa, and seeds stored inside the cocoons were protected. In fact, GrainPro’s products are all made at a factory on the former US Naval Base at Subic Bay, 75 miles from Manila.” More.
One thing I would’ve like English to ask him about is how the plastic gets recycled. Too often one public good seems in conflict with another public good. More than likely, Villers has a plan for recycling.
Photo: Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff
“We eliminate the need for pesticides, and we can protect food supplies against all kinds of calamities such as typhoons and earthquakes,” said Phil Villers, on his “ultra-hermetic” grain bags and storage “cocoons.”
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