Eden Research's friendly fungicide to help France make more wine

Eden Research has received long-awaited clearance from French regulators to begin selling its environmentally friendly fungicide that prevents and treats botrytis in table and wine grapes.

The product, known by the AIM-listed company as 3AEY and to be marketed under the brand name Mevalone, will be sold in France by partner SumiAgro in time for the coming season.

Botrytis, or grape rot, is a fungal disease that causes grey mould that is calculated to result in average crop losses of around 20% of the total harvest, costing producers between €10-100bn annually worldwide, depending upon weather conditions, with the market for botryticides alone worth more than $350m per annum.

Mevalone is a fungicide that uses essential oil terpene to prevent and treat botrytis, it has also so far been approved for sale Bulgaria, Greece, Italy and Spain.

"France is one of the leading wine producers in the world and is certainly one of the most prestigious, not only because of the quantity of wine produced but also the intense focus upon quality production," said chief executive Sean Smith.

"We are delighted that Mevalone is registered and available for sale in 2017 in this important market. Since we signed the agreement with SumiAgro in late 2014, there has been a lot of work by both parties to ensure that we could achieve this key product registration as quickly as possible, and we are pleased to have realised this ambition with the strong support of SumiAgro France."

House broker Shore Capital, which is working on revised forecasts as a result of the news, said the French approval was a "significant and long-awaited milestone" with the French authorities "taking longer than we had anticipated but it has been an issue outside of the company’s control".

"Positively, the approval has been granted in time so Mevalone can be sold in the 2017 season."

Monday's announcement follows the full year trading update issued in December when the company announced lower revenues for the full year than expected as well as an evolution in its operating model.

Shares in Eden soared 35% on Monday to 13.65p, though this was only back to levels seen approaching this warning in December.