Notpla

Notpla is a sustainable packaging start-up based in London. We pioneer the use of natural materials such as alginate, an extract from brown seaweed, to create materials with low environmental impact. The mission of the Notpla is to provide sustainable packaging technologies to companies as an alternative to plastic packaging. 150 million tonnes of plastic waste reaches the oceans every year, taking hundreds of years to decompose. Notpla believes that natural solutions can solve all the packaging needs of the future and is at the forefront of this movement. 

We create new materials that are: made from seaweed and plants; home compostable; fully sustainable. By using different formulations and adjusting the properties, Notpla can be used in a diverse range of settings. To date, the company has three main product lines - Ooho sachets for liquids, the Liner for coatings and Films for solids.

According to Carolina Schmidt, Environmental Minister of Chile:”It is estimated 8 millions tons of plastic reach our ocean every year and 70% of it stays in the seabed, severely polluting our ecosystems.” From the plastic waste island in the north pacific gyre to the thousands of tons of plastic waste ashore the coasts of Peru and Columbia, single-use plastic packaging is a global issue. This type of packaging has a consumed within seconds, meanwhile it lasts for hundreds of years. Plastic packaging in the sea degrades in smaller particles called microplastics. These are ingested by marine life which then finds its way into your plate. Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage. The world is now producing nearly 300 million tonnes of plastic per year, over half of which is single use plastic, most of which is thrown away within a few minutes of use. In fact, by 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than there are fish.

Whether you are running a marathon, drinking alcohol at a music festival, getting food delivered or buying new furniture, you can be certain it will involve single use plastic packaging. That is where we come in, Notpla’s range of products is designed to disappear. Our core product, Ooho, is a flexible packaging for liquids that is home compostable and even edible. It has proven its use as a packet of water in running events, miniatures for sampling of soft drinks, to replace plastic shot glasses for spirits and to replace sachets for condiments. 

Oohos have been successfully used in large event settings including sports and festivals, featuring in international events such as the London Marathon, Roland Garros and Glastonbury Festival. The novel nature of Oohos has also proven popular at parties and activations of new products, such as in the campaign by the Glenlivet. Oohos are also well suited to be used for sauces in single-use sachets. Their compact size allows for correct portioning to reduce product wastage, as well as being an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional single-use packaging methods.

Notpla’s first product, Ooho, is a flexible packaging for liquids. Made from seaweed extracts, Oohos are edible, biodegradable and home compostable in four to six weeks. They are best suited to food-to-go, fresh or takeaway applications. Best described as a capsule or sachet, one Ooho can hold between 20-100mL of liquid. It can encapsulate a wide range of liquids including water, juice, alcohol, condiments and sauces, and is not restricted by the pH of the product. 

Seaweed is one of the world's most abundant  plant-types, acting as a huge carbon sink. It can be harvested all year round and all over the world. The production of seaweed has low negative environmental impact - no nasty chemicals, fertilisers or pesticides, no freshwater and no deforestation required. Notpla’s seaweed is 100% Sustainably sourced.

Oohos are manufactured by Notpla’s proprietary Ooho Production machine. It is a compact industrial machine that will fit easily within a manufacturing facility or food service set up, which can be operated by trained staff. It will be available to lease in late 2020, and in the interim we are operating a production service.

The Notpla Liner is a naturally biodegradable coating for paper products, providing a grease proof and water resistant barrier. This is an ideal coating for use in the service of food products (e.g. for take-away meals) and the storage of dried goods. Notpla Liner can be applied directly onto paperboard through direct-to-reel printing technologies, or onto formed fibre substrates using spraying techniques. The Notpla Liner can be supplied to paperboard and box manufacturers as a powder, or can be sold as finished lined boxes ready for the end consumer.

Notpla Film is a flexible packaging material with a wide range of applications. There are a selection of different Films to choose from, each with a particular commercial application. For example, there are Films designed to be water soluble at cold and/or hot temperatures (e.g. dissolvable packaging for dishwashing tablets), or completely water insoluble (packaging where protection from water is a necessity). It can be used in both food and non-food settings. Notpla Film is heat sealable, and is compatible with VFFS machines. Branding requirements can be achieved through a selection of available colours, as well as direct printing onto the film using edible ink. Notpla Film is currently in late stage R&D.

Notpla is different from PLA and other bioplastics, which require specific recycling pathways and specialised industrial composting equipment to degrade. In contrast, it takes less than six weeks for Notpla to completely decompose in a home compostable environment. To put this in to perspective, a PET bottle can take upto 700 years to degrade. Notpla is a low carbon material, with our machinery using little energy to produce the Ooho sachets. Notpla Oohos generate 96% less carbon emissions than PET  plastic for an equivalent container volume. We are currently in the process of completing a full carbon calculation for our Liner and Film products. The seaweed that we use is one of nature’s most renewable resources. It grows fast and is globally abundant and readily available. Seaweed doesn’t compete with food crops for land nor does it need fresh water or fertiliser to grow. Most importantly, growing seaweed actively sequesters CO2 and de-acidifies the oceans. With sustainability at the heart of what we do, we ensure that the seaweed that we use is sourced from responsible and environmentally conscious suppliers.

Single use packagings are the core target for Notpla. We have created a range of seaweed alternative material to replace the problematic use of plastic but keep the convenience of single use packaging. By simply changing the material used for packaging, we intendl to keep consumer’s lifestyle without polluting the environment.

We are currently serving 300,000 people a year but this year we will serve an additional 1,000,000 people across Europe, North America and South East Asia.  In five years time we expect to be a fully globalised company serving 10,000,000+ customers, actively sequestering CO2 emissions, and eliminating plastic waste.

Every materials our chemists come up with, we put in a wormery. If the material is eaten by the worms within a month, we know that it is a packaging that will not harm the environment.

One of Notpla’s primary goals is to reduce the negative effects of packaging on the environment, both in terms of its’ production and waste presence. An important part of our action is to measure and keep track of the positive effect of our packaging solutions as we grow. Once the company starts to commercially sell a significant volume of products, we will establish the correct environmental KPIs to monitor and track.

Notpla has generated significant media traction, both in traditional print and online editorial, as well as on social media. This is something we plan to cultivate and build over the coming years to create an ingredient brand that is both known and trusted.

Production and commercialisation of the Ooho Sachet is dependent on the Ooho Production Machine. Notpla has two prototype machine designs and further development of these machines is needed to operate reliably enough to lease directly to the customer, which is the long term business model. In the interim, however, the company plans to operate the machines in-house and sell the final product directly to consumers. 

Ooho Beverages are intended to be a significant cash generator for the business over the next two years. In YE 2019 Revenue from Ooho Beverages is expected to have been £140,000 with just one operating machine and limited up time due to testing requirements. The target for the next 12 months is in the range of £500k-£1m revenue from this segment. Notpla will build and self-operate multiple machines in its production facility in London. The company also has plans to launch some international hubs, most likely starting with the USA, Europe or Latin America.

Following on from initial commercialisation, globalisation of each product will be the next step, with regional production hubs to reduce carbon emissions from unnecessary transportation. Once the Ooho Production Machine is sufficiently developed the machine can be leased directly to manufacturers and the materials sold, with the company initially manufacturing the machine and gradually moving to an outsources machine manufacturer to take over this responsibility. It is also likely that new versions of the machine will be developed to fit the many different use applications and to increase material sales further.

We are fighting against plastic, a material that has benefited from 90 years of government funded R&D. This means the level of performance and efficiency we are comparing to are very high

.Notpla is pioneering the use of seaweed, a material that has been under-researched compared to petrochemicals. Most extraction technologies haven't changed since the 2nd world war. Therefore there is both a lack of innovation and a big opportunity for improving the performances, costs and applications for seaweed based packaging.

Plastics’ high performances have created a supply chain that is very hard on any natural material, which is why we have to create not only new formulations but also new machines and new consumption behaviors. Another barrier is the governmental bias towards recycling as the main option for solving the plastics crisis, because down the line this option allows to continue using the same machines and infrastructure. Bio materials can’t always fit exactly in the same processes and require a deeper system change.

We have a unique R&D team mixing skills sets from chemistry to biology, engineering and design, which allows us to tackle these non linear problems. We are involving the wider community to give weight to our solutions. Our product Ooho has attracted over 300 millions views on social media, which is unheard of in the packaging industry. This is helping us to convince our partners that their consumers are really ready for change. The community actually funded our first financing round in 2017 when we raised 850k£ from 900 investors all over the world.

In October 2019 we launched the Glenlivet Whiskey capsules in the London Cocktail Week, which went viral on the Internet. Given the results of this competition, we will consider a similar development in a country of South America. The requirements for implementing a production set up are as follow:

• Ooho machines (produced by Notpla in Europe) 

• Notpla Dough (Notpla’s special seaweed paste, delivered from EU, 9 months shelf life refrigerated)

• A food grade facility similar to an industrial kitchen (27.5 sqm)

• Cold storage (fridges or cold room) for chilled fresh product 

• Cold storage for finished product 

• Dry storage for trays and empty cartridges 

• Dry storage for ambient product 

• Water points (for machinery, cleaning and separate sink for hand washing) needs to be high pressure 

• Staff (2 per machine)

The team now has 19 full-time staff, comprised of 4 chemists, 4 mechanical engineers, 3 business developers, 1 operations lead, 3 production operatives and 4 materials designers.

The core management team of Notpla is composed of our two co-founders Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez and Pierre Paslier, and of our Chief Finance Officer Lise Honsinger. 

Rodrigo is an inventor, designer, architect and Engineer. He has a Masters of Architecture with Honours from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, as well as postgraduate qualifications from the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (India), Industrial Design at Pontificia Universidad Católica (Chile), the Umeå Institute of Design, Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. Prior to Notpla he invented and developed different patents on structural and deployable systems, following suitcases, and other products. As a lecturer, he has collaborated with different institutions such as Cornell University (USA), CEPT (India) or Kingston University(UK). He won the Gold Medal in the 2nd Improvisation World Championship celebrated in 2009 Santiago de Chile, has been awarded with the National Dyson Design Award, and won 3 times the GAUDI European Competition on Sustainable Architecture. 

Pierre is an Innovation Design Engineer. After graduating with a MEng from INSA in Lyon, France, Pierre started his career being a Packaging Engineer for L’Oréal. But uninspired by industrialising new skincare products, he studied design at the RCA and in 2013, co-designing one of the first consumer Delta 3Dprinters in Taiwan whilst a student. After graduating in 2014 he cofounded two start-ups: Gravity Sketch – a 3D design platform, and Notpla with Ooho, the water bottle you can eat. 

As described before, Ooho has been validated in a number of different markets, with many paying and repeat customers in the beverages space. The company also has partnership or activation agreements with major brands such as Just Eat, The Glenlivet and Lucozade. The Notpla Films has had repeatedly commissioned products from varied content providers from the shampoo industry to the pet food industry.

In the case of the Ooho sachet, use of the material requires the Ooho Production Machine which is the company’s own proprietary manufacturing technology. So the expected future business model for Ooho is to lease the machine and sell the associated materials. We intend to lease the machine, for a price that is determined in context. 

In the near term (next 12 - 24months) whilst the machine is undergoing continued development, the business model is instead that of a service or end product sale model.

We sell Oohos for a range of prices between £0.20 – 3.50 therefore we make good margin on all these. Sports events are the largest volumes we do at an average price of £0.25/unit which gives 50% margin. Private events are smaller volumes but higher margins. The business model for the liner is to sell the coating to manufacturers of paper products as well as to sell a coated box direct to customers. In this case the customer is mostly likely restaurants. For the films it will be B2B sales directly to packaging buyers to use in their normal heat sealing machinery in place of PE plastics or PLA.

As described earlier, we are a packaging company, we intend to supply content providers with our unique seaweed material. We plan to lease our production machines and sell them our material.

With our three product branch, Ooho sachet, Notpla Liner and Notpla Films, the development of more than one product creates a lack of focus and adds risk to commercialisation. We the help of the IDB Group we could easily establish our business model with commercial and distribution partners on a global scale. We often struggle to deal with the formal requirements of commercial lawyers. Our technology and proprietary materials can be too disruptive of the existing sector with large incumbent companies using plastic packaging for years, basing their business model around its properties. With the IDB Group backing us, we will gain credibility to the eyes of the leading South American beverages corporations in the hopes to reach a platform of discussion where we will be able to challenge the system around plastic packaging.

Partnering with one of the leading beverage corporation in the Latin american countries, like Postobon, we first intend to introduce Ooho as a recognizable product for consumers to test and become accustomed to our unique edible seaweed packaging. These trials can take the shape of sampling new drinks. Successful of this achievement we will sell a Production Machine to the Postobon for local manufacturing. In the meantime, taking advantage of this way of entry on the market with Postobon, we will act as a packaging provider and push our Notpla Liner and Films. Teaming up with food delivery companies like Rappi or Cornershop we intend introduce our seaweed takeaway box to local restaurants. Gaining trust from beverages and food delivery stakeholders and consumers we hope to democratise the use of Notpla for single-use packaging.