Everything started with a colleague who underwent heart surgery in an
operating theatre contaminated with staphylococcus. Then came the intuition of
his close colleagues: try to intervene starting with ozone. And so, from a
Bologna research lab emerged a company destined to rewrite the fight against
viruses and bacteria thanks to the creation of ozone generators. For FARE
INSIEME Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Federico Ponti, co-founder and CEO of
Met
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Doing business means taking care of
something. Of your own people, clients, communities. But the story we are about
to tell you multiplies this care. Because it generated from the big heart of
some colleagues at the service of a bad heart. But let's proceed with order.
Everything started in 2006 when a colleague underwent open heart surgery and
was infected by bacteria present in the operating theatre and extremely
resistant to treatment. His colleagues, being former researchers, decided to
roll up their sleeves. And they managed to solve the problem: they created an
ozone-generating system to treat their colleague. The result? The
staphylococcus was eliminated in two months.
The
strength of ozone. From there, they had an
intuition. What if we thought about another ten, one hundred, one thousand
people affected by this bacteria? So they began the tests and experiments on
other patients, all of whom recovered.
This is where Met’s adventure started. An incredible story. It is the
power of ozone that creates made-to-measure solutions and innovative
applications with an eye to sustainability. The company was set up in 2008 and
looked to the future, investing in research and widening the use of ozone to
various fields. The company specialises in the design of ozone generators made
to measure according to client needs. “Everything
started indeed with a tragedy, but it opened the door to unthinkable scenarios,” recounts Federico Ponti, CEO and co-founder
of the company together with Fabiano Senese. Met boasts six collaborators with
different backgrounds. A winning melting pot. After all, one must specialize in
the company, as there are no schools that teach how to use ozone. Everything
started as a spin-off of Temo, an electronics business founded by Ponti himself
together with other three partners in 1981. Today the turnover is just under
one million Euro which is reinvested in research. Over the past few years,
investments in R&D totalled 50%, also with self-financing formulae. Three
patents in three different sectors were obtained in 2023 alone: organic
weeding, reduction of odorous emissions and reduction of chemical pollutants.
Complex words that encapsulate the fight against all sorts of viruses and
bacteria. The company name, MET, is the
acronym of Medical Equipment Technology. We are in Bologna and this business
has become a global point of reference for the design of Italian-made ozone
generators and systems. Ozone
systems. What do they represent? And why are they innovative and sustainable? i.e.
how do they represent the future? Ponti has no doubts. “They constitute an actual innovation in every application sector
because they enable the passing from a consumerist concept of a product that is
purchased, used and disposed of to a piece of machinery that generates a
sanitizing product consuming very little electricity and water. So, once the
generator is acquired, the sanitizing action does not generate residues and
does not pollute.” Transversal innovation
for a multitude of sectors: medical, agrifood, transport. “Technology is fundamental, but who develops
it? After all, it is a combination of our cultures and commitment. That is why
people make the difference. The great advantage represented by operating in
Emilia is the opportunity of working with highly skilled people in different
sectors, of entrusting artisans capable of developing solutions and the
availability of raw materials that would be difficult to source in other areas,” says Ponti.
Challenges in agriculture. The requests of potential clients evolve based on single necessities and
sectors. In agriculture, there are more problems linked with the presence of
increasingly aggressive fungi, bacteria and insects. Then there are all the
regulations aimed at reducing the use of pesticides and other pollutants. “In this
case too, ozone has proved to be a product that can help producers, provided
that they change their mindset linked to the use of chemicals. They must take
back ownership of the agronomic culture and try to defend themselves using
application strategies that reduce products that have a harmful impact as much
as possible,”
stresses Ponti. Innovation is part of Met’s DNA, as the company was technically
born in a research lab. “Then we realized that it is not enough to develop
innovative and functional solutions or applications, we need to make them known
to those who need them and to those ready to take the cultural leap, going
beyond the concept of consumables and reaching for what is functional and
sustainable,”
concludes Ponti. Researchers with a soul ready to narrate a new future that
still has to be written.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
Read the other interviews
