A Bethel startup is buzzing about a mosquito repellant it showed off at the National Hardware Show last week in Las Vegas ”“ with its parent Bedoukian Research already laying tentative plans to develop other products to ward off deer ticks and bedbugs, the twin scourges of Fairfield County.
Bite-Lite L.L.C. is selling mosquito-repellant candles it says represent the first significant breakthrough for natural mosquito control, while not emitting the smoke and strong odors put out by citronella candles used to deter the bloodsuckers.
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven trapped and tested more than 115,000 mosquitoes last year, with nearly 250 testing positive for West Nile virus, Jamestown Canyon virus or Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus.
Between mosquitoes, deer ticks and bedbugs ”“ not to mention grubs and Asian longhorn beetles for lawn fanatics ”“ pest elimination is a major services industry in Fairfield County. Far fewer consumer-products startups have emerged locally to tackle the problem, however. Bite-Lite candles are based upon technology developed by Danbury-based Bedoukian Research, following a zoologist”™s observations of monkeys anointing themselves in oils from fruits and leaves to repel bugs.
“It wasn”™t working as a repellant and he was kind of dumbfounded,” said Robert Bedoukian, president of Bedoukian Research. “We ended up finding components that are safe, smell good and work well as a repellant.
“It”™s based on a good story that we didn”™t want to just let sit,” he added. “We will probably come up with a topical repellant.”
Of course, the odor of citronella candles themselves is derived from a natural product ”“ a variety of lemongrass, with separate lemongrass plants also used as an herb in Asian cuisine. Greenwich-based Blyth Inc. at one time sold citronella candles among the many home-goods it peddles, with a corporate history saying the product helped clear a path away from a heavy reliance on the holidays for its revenue.
Today, citronella candles remain a spring and summer mainstay for New York-based Martha Stewart Living and many other cataloguers, as well as hardware stores.
Bite-Lite now faces the significant challenge of attracting notice from big-name retailers and distributors, and has started that process at the National Hardware Show and its attendant New Product Show.
The company was just one of a swarm of some 2,300 vendors displaying more than 100,000 products at the show, which is organized by Norwalk-based Reed Exhibitions.
If Bedoukian Research is new to the world of consumer-product trade shows, it knows mosquitoes. A mainstay of Bedoukian Research”™s business remains insect pheromones used to attract bugs, with farmers spreading the pheromones in fields to distract males from finding females with which to mate.
Paul Bedoukian founded the company in 1972 as a developer of high-end ingredients to produce varying flavors and aromas for foods, perfumes and other applications. Today, that is a $4.8 billion industry, according to a February study by the Cleveland-based market-research company Freedonia Group, which counts Bedoukian Research among some 40 major competitors in the industry.
Bedoukian Research”™s 170-page compendium reads like a cross between a Martha Stewart Living catalog and a high-school chemistry pop quiz, with extremely precise descriptions of applications for its compounds. For instance, one compound with a lengthy chemical name notes it is best used in fragrance applications “where a coconut note or the fuzzy part of the peach are needed,” or in flavoring “for a milky coconut note adding lift to fruity compositions.”
