Northwest Botanicals,Inc. SPECIALIZING IN MARKETING, PROCESSING, AND COTTAGE INDUSTRIES

1212 SW 5th Street Grants Pass, OR 97526-6104 (541) 476-5588 (541) 476-1823 (FAX)

Updated 05-28-03

RE: A New Blue-Green Algae For The Smart-Drug Market

03-01-97  

Dear Buyer:

For those of you who currently market spirulina or chorella to the vitamin trade, there is now a new companion product that can be marketed along side the other two. This is the blue-green algae known as Aphanizomenon flos-aquae from Klamath Lake, Oregon. Why is it a companion product to this competitive marketplace? Here are some good reasons to consider:

1. Both spirulina and chorella are imported from other countries, while Aphanizomenon flos-aquae product is domestically harvested and processed from natural sources. There is a growing trend for crop produced in the United States.

2. Aphanizomenon flos-aquae has been freeze-dried to retain the essential neuro-peptides (amino acids), while they are lost in both spirulina and chorella because of drum dehydration. Of the three, only this blue-green algae can be called a "smart-drug."

3. Because Aphanizomenon flos-aquae product has been freeze-dried, it has also made it more expensive than either spirulina or chorella. This is why it should be marketed as a companion product, for those willing to pay more for the neuro-peptides.

4. The presence of these neuro-peptides makes Aphanizomenon flos-aquae product a very important dietary supplement. Their presence allows glial cell manufacture in the neuro-cavity, qualifying it as a true "smart-drug."

We would like to make a special introductory price of $60.00 for the first pound purchase. This is our current price for 2,000-pound orders. This price is also offered on a contract withdrawal basis for established customers. Because of the price difference, we feel that this will compliment sales of both spirulina and chorella, and should be sold as a companion product rather than a competitive substitute.

Samples and a laboratory analysis are available upon request. How may we help you with your first order of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae?

Sincerely Yours,

Richard Alan Miller,

Agricultural Consultant

Enclosure: Sales Sheet

October 24, 1994

[Note: Prepared in NW Botanical offices for Grant Brown]

FAQ on Klamath Lake Blue Green Algae - Harvest and Preservation

Thank you for your interest in Brown Resources' Klamath Lake Blue Green Algae powder. We are proud of our product and we feel privileged that many name brand clientele now share in its benefits. Richard Miller, of Northwest Botanicals, relayed to me three areas of continued inquiry. This FAQ will attempt to answer these questions as I understand them, and as my experience has taught me to evaluate what I read, hear and observe.

Brown Family: As background for my answers, please allow me to introduce the Brown Family, the Lake, the enterprise called Brown Resources, and the Native Algae Bloom which we harvest: Now in our fourth and fifth generation living and working near and on the Klamath, the Browns have experienced the Lake in all its moods for 103 years. I was born in Dads' little house on the shores of the Klamath Lake seventy years ago. (By contrast, other harvesters have been around for 3-15 years. Two of them don't even live here.)

Klamath Lake & Algae: Fed by cold mountain springs and streams draining from some 3,000 square miles of forested, virgin volcanic soils, Klamath Lake provides an ideal environment for the "super blooms" of Aphanizomenon flos-aqua. To dominate, this algae requires cool (50-60 degree Fahrenheit) fresh water, mineral nutrients, and abundant sunshine.

Being in the Family Nostocaceae which (like the rhizobium bacteria of the Legume plants) is capable of nitrogen fixation, these algaes acquire their own protein nitrogen from the air dissolved in the cool fresh water. The Nostoc Algaes cannot grow in high temperatures, alkaline or saline waters, or in the presence of nitrogenous pollution.

I theorize that the 1994 crop failure may be attributable to low water flow from eight years of drought resulting in deficiency of fresh volcanic mineral nutrients, a higher water temperature from low lake depth, and a build up of "scavenger" algaes feeding on decomposing organic matter in the "unwashed" waters. The 1994 conditions have no historic precedence and we have every reason to anticipate normal seasons to prevail.

Brown Resources: In 1987, my sons (one a lawyer/one a mechanical engineer P.E.) and I (a cattle rancher) organized Brown Resources as an aqua culture enterprise in association with the ranches. We were the first algae harvesters going to the source of the crop. (Other harvesters had waited for the algae to come to them. One still does.)

Our harvest operation was a learning sequence, but after several dead ends we found the right approach and became very effective. But, unfortunately our contracted marketer proved to be dishonest, resulting in unpaid sales. She went broke, and we were left with unsold frozen inventory. We have appreciated the professional expertise and hard work received in the marketing services of Northwest Botanicals.

Question 1

Harvest Procedure: Algae harvest, for anybody doing it, consists of four facets.

1. Removing the product from the water.

2. Removing the water from the product.

3. Preventing and/or Removing the presence of unwanted (non -target)(usually naturally associated) other material (usually called "impurities" or "foreign matter") from the final consumer product.

4. Accomplishing all of the above while maintaining maximum retention of the inherent goodness of the original natural, produce that the consumer is paying good money to buy good product to accomplish good for his own good health.

To understand where and how and when Brown Resources conducts our harvest, you must first understand the nature and behavior of the Aphanizomenon flos-aqua algae. Full grown, fresh and healthy, the algae colonies resemble finely chopped lawn clippings floating in the water. Far from being "ordinary pond scum" this organism is a highly dynamic plant which, by its daily movements, seems to behave as if endowed with "animal intelligence".

Brown Resources has learned when and how and where to harvest the crop at the peak of its grown maturity, before it has started to deteriorate, while leaving the immature baby plants in their habitat to grow and be ready for harvest tomorrow or the next day. By concentrating our extraction on the timing of the target maturity we are also successful in avoiding incidental harvest of associated zoo-plankton and non-target algaes.

Immediately upon the gentle lifting of the algae out of the water, we begin gently removing the water out of the algae. We also begin the chilling process for the retention of quality. Next we filter the crop and last we place the crop in air tight sealed plastic buckets to be rapidly frozen at or below zero degrees Fahrenheit and held until freeze drying.

The question, as I understand it, appears to reflect an inquiry of, "How does Brown Resources harvest compare to the techniques used by other harvesters?" Answer: There is no comparison, because they are based on different assuptions concerning the plant's physiology.

One harvester locates his facilities on the bank of the Klamath Irrigation District "A" canal, about twenty five miles from the sources of the algae bloom and about fifteen miles from where the water leaves the lake flowing through the city and suburbs of Klamath Falls. His equipment technique harvests everything that floats down the canal. The rest of his "flow chart" attempts to remove the foreign material.

Another goes out onto the lake in the same general area as our operation. But his claim is that by keeping his receiving intake "below the surface he gets less foreign matter" is, in our opinion, fallacious because he ignores the principles of the plant's physiology and the physics of fluid dynamics.

Our understanding of this crop is that what he does accomplish is to increase the harvest of zoo- plankton and non target algaes in addition to immature and over mature (deteriorating) plants of his target crop. Once harvested there is no way of again separating these. Also between lake and freezer his product is several times subjected to violent turbulence and much more oxidation exposure than ours.

Our competitors use elaborate harvest equipment more costly to own and operate than ours, but by working with the bloom cycles of the crop, we assert that our harvest yields a superior product.

Question 2

Frozen Storage and Freeze Drying:

As with the Mastodon flesh frozen thousands of years and still edible;

As with a Swiss mountaineer trapped and frozen in a slow moving glacier for 70 years, the body when released at the glacier terminus looked younger than his grandson;

As with the fresh trout frozen in plastic bags of water; and

As with the national radio advertisement proclaiming that "(trade name) the natural ginseng product - quick frozen and freeze dried to lock in all its natural goodness --- "; so also,

We have confidence that the undeteriorated algae, when it is "locked in" within high water content crystals, in air tight sealed containers is just as protected against oxidation as the carbon atom is protected in the crystal of the diamond.

"Freezer Burn" is when frozen storage lacks sealed protection so that moisture escapes by sublimation and air leaks allow oxidation. "Locker Taste" involves sublimated aromatic compounds transferring (again by lack of proper sealing) from one product to another. Our major competitors in the algae harvest have been freezing and storing in unsealed plastic wraps. Brown Resources airtight sealed plastic buckets cost more, but give much more protection against volatilization.

The theory and practice of the Frozen Storage Industry and also my own anecdotal experience gives me full confidence that stock in cold storage is the same quality now as when it was origianlly stored. In Freeze Drying, all the air is evacuated from the drying chamber. Actual pressure-absolute is maintained at less than1 mm. mercury (1/300th atmospheric) the trace remaining gas being water vapor. Hence there is no oxygen left to "burn" the product.

Question 3

"Neuro-Peptides" "Smart Food" "Nutrient Vehicle Across Blood-Brain Barrier" "Neuro Peptides" is a valid scientific term referring to the specialized protein-building blocks (found in the brain and nerves and especially in the protective sheath surrounding the neuro system) which must function in the transfer of nutrients and information.

In 1988 we hired an extensive (and expensive) chemical analysis of the freeze dried powder for specific minerals, amino acids, vitamins, carbohydrate fats, ash, etc., a copy of which is available upon request. Just completed is a new testing intended to meet the requirements of the new regulations concerning "Certificate of Analysis." This information is supplied with each order of product. But the real "goodies" of the algae cannot be measured in a test tube.

The "catchy" advertising promotion terms used in the Klamath Lake Blue Green Algae industry are not a part of my vocabulary, however these expressions are entirely compatible with the nutritional benefits I have experienced from the algae. Taking low quantities (2-4 / 250 mg capsules per day, not consistently) of our capsules or tablets or loose bulk powder I can find no difference in the help I receive from consumer product seven years since preparation, or three years, or just a couple of months.

Those benefits include less fatigue from nervous stress or longs days on the Ranch, feeling better, feeling younger, enhanced immune system, more energy and thinking clearer. Corresponding to the phrase "nutrient vehicle across the blood- nerve-barrier", I can say absolutely that, perhaps 50-100 times per year, with 2-4 capsules I have achieved immediate and usually complete control of night time leg muscle cramps which onset after a day of severe or unusual exercise.

As mentioned above, I am 70 years young and both physically and mentally I can outwork my hired men who are about half my age. My doctor, during a physical exam, exclaimed, "What do you do to stay so healthy?"

Sincerely,

Grant F. Brown
Production Manager
Brown Resources
 

Prepared in NW Botanical offices by Richard Alan Miller for Grant Brown