Sarnia’s Comet Bio adds experience to its board

Inder Mathur, a veteran agribusiness and food industry executive, has joined the board at Comet Bio, a company planning to build a manufacturing site in Sarnia.

The London Free Press
November 14, 2018
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Comet Bio, which recently shortened its name from Comet Biorefining, said in a news release that Mathur has more than 30 years experience in the ingredient manufacturing, agribusiness and the food and beverage industries.

He was previously CEO of the Western Sugar Cooperative, a sugar beet refining and marketing company based in Denver.

“The addition of Inder to our board of directors will further enhance the depth of experiences and diversity of skill sets represented on our board,” said Rich Troyer, CEO of Comet Bio.

Comet is planning to build a plant in Sarnia to make dextrose sugar and other products from corn stalks and wheat straw sourced from a farm cooperative formed recently in the region.

Troyer said Mathur’s experience will be a resource for the company as it scales up its technology to supply the food, beverage, animal feed and biomaterials markets.

“Comet Bio has developed a disruptive technology with the potential to change the entire ingredient industry,” Mathur said in a news release.

“I look forward to helping them harness the potential of their technology, access new markets for their sustainable ingredients and realize their mission of changing the way ingredients are made.”

Comet, initially based at the Western University Research Park in London, announced in 2016 it would build its first commercial plant in Sarnia and planned to have it in full production in 2019.

Earlier this year, Ontario said it would invest $8 million into the $79.8-million Sarnia plant project.

A company spokesperson said Wednesday no additional information was available about the timing of the start of construction on the Sarnia facility.