Wrapped in plastic: Aussie startup creates compostable pallet wrap

Julia and Jordy Kay, co-founders of Great Wrap. Source: Supplied

The world's first compostable pallet wrap has just been launched by Melbourne-based Great Wrap.

After launching in 2019, the company raised $24 million last year for its vision to ‘completely knock petroleum plastic off the supermarket shelf’.

Starting in the home with its ‘nudie roll’ compostable cling wrap subscription service, it is now pushing into the B2B market.

"Some of the businesses that were coming to us were iconic Australian brands that we all know and love, so that was really good to see," Julia Kay, co-founder of Great Wrap, said in a call with SmartCompany.

The latest stories, funding information, and expert advice. Free to sign up.

According to Great Wrap, 100,000 tonnes of traditional plastic wrap winds up in landfill each year. And that's just in Australia.

A big part of that is pallet wrap being an integral part of global supply chains. Combined with a lack of facilities that can recycle these petroleum-based materials — it's become an exponential problem.

Great Wrap is determined to help address this by making 20,000 tonnes of its biodegradable wrap by 2025 — 5,000 of which will be in 2023 alone.

Its products are completely compostable, even in home compost units. Presently Great Wrap imports some of its thermoplastic starch materials, which is made from the waste from potato chip production.

But it has its eyes on creating more solutions locally.

"We’ve also developed a pathway to convert potato waste into PHA, which is the biopolymer. It performs just like plastic but will break-down in not only the home compost pile but in marine environments as well," Kay said.

"We’re planning on setting up a biorefinery for that on-site next year. So that’ll mean we’ll be processing local potato wastes. I’ll be really happy when we’re at that point because we’ll be almost fully circular."

Including its own biorefinery at its Tullamarine site will also help on Great Wrap's journey towards price parity with competitors. After all, plastic is used so often because of how cheap it is.

"For us there's pretty much been two design criteria we’ve wanted to tick off — performance and price," Kay said.

"With all of our design processes, we’ve tried to be as efficient and affordable as possible. When we have our own biorefinery on site, all of that will bring our costs down. We’re at a slight premium at the moment but that is tracking down because of all those changes."

Despite the current economic turmoil in the world, there has still been a push from companies, as well as consumers, to engage in more sustainable practices and to opt for local choices, even when there is a cost attached.

"I think it's a really good story for these businesses to be able tell and I think they’re really proud to be using us. Because there really isn't another option — it's either plastic or Great Wrap."

The business has already been pushing into the US but there has been big interest from other markets as well.

"There's so much interest it's almost overwhelming. We’ve got a lot of American investors… but we’ve noticed a lot of European inquiries and throughout Asia as well," Kay said.

Now that its pallet wrap product has launched — which addresses plastic wrap use on a large scale — there are also plans for the company's Nudie Rolls to appear in supermarkets in the future –possibly at the end of 2023.

"We’ve had some great chats with ranging teams. Now we have pallet wrap launched and contracts on the way we’ll shift focus on getting into retailers with the home side as well," Kay said.