Another Kind of Residuals

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Another Kind of Residuals
Down to Earth in Arts District

Lauren Gropper’s career was rooted in environmental design, so founding and running a compostable tableware company was a natural evolution – but not a straight line.

The Vancouver native’s interests led her to New York City, where she earned a master’s degree in environmental planning and design from Pratt Institute. She went on to Hollywood and a job as a sustainability consultant in the entertainment industry, advising film and TV clients on ways to make production sets “greener” through reducing waste.

That sparked the idea behind Repurpose Inc., which makes plant-based disposable and compostable tableware using blends of corn, wood scraps, beets and sugarcane stock – the residual material from the process that extracts juice from the sugarcane plant. The company also makes trash bags from plant-based materials.

“I remember being on many different sets those days and seeing so much waste,” Gropper said. “There were Styrofoam and plastic plates, cups and utensils everywhere, all the time.”

And that led Gropper to the Arts District of downtown, where Repurpose designs, develops and sells its tableware – think plates, bowls, cups, forks, spoons, knives and straws. The products are on Amazon.com Inc.’s website and in 6,000 retail stores across the nation including Safeway Inc., Albertsons, Wegmans Food Markets Inc. and Winco Foods.

Roots

Repurpose was founded in 2009 by Gropper and Corey Scholibo, a former journalist with a marketing background who now serves as Repurpose’s chief marketing officer. Jordan Silverman, one of the company’s first investors, joined the team a year later and now serves as chief operations officer.

The L.A.-based leadership team focuses on sales and marketing, and oversees contract manufacturing in Taiwan, established through a family connection of Brian Chung, chief product officer for Repurpose.

The base in Taiwan provides proximity to sugar production there and other parts of Southeast Asia.

Repurpose’s has kept its headquarters operations for the last five years at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, a private, nonprofit organization that helps startups focused on clean technology.

The incubator teaches the companies how to present themselves, with lessons on preparations of financials to show potential investors. It then matches them with advisors and mentors from varied business backgrounds, such as chambers of commerce, banks, local universities and lawyers who introduce them to their investor network.

Cleantech Incubator Executive-in-Residence Tracy Gray, founder and managing partner of venture capital and advisory firm 22 Fund, has been Repurpose’s advisor. Gray gets a salary from the incubator, and meets with companies weekly to review their progress and activities. She coaches Gropper and her colleagues on overall strategies, market analysis and research, types of capital – the basic differences between debt and equity, for example –and supply chains.

“This allows us to mitigate risks for future investors by catching problems a lot earlier,” Gray said. “We help put the companies incubated here in front of potential customers, have someone look at their financials, and (then) position them to investors.”

Los Angeles Cleantech charges its companies $500 a month for a dedicated desk and $250 a month for non-dedicated desk. Companies can continue with the incubator as long as they need to if they are benefitting from its support.

Repurpose, which has 10 employees, has raised at least $7 million from investors. It counts local angel investor group Pasadena Angels Inc. among other investors.

Gropper wouldn’t disclose revenue, but said monthly sales on average have increased 3,000 percent to more than 200,000 units from just under 7,000 a month in 2013.

A pack of Repurposes’ nine-inch, 20-count plates retails for $8.65, and a 20-count pack of bowls cost $8.21, on Amazon.com and both retail for $3.79 in stores.

Gropper attributed the growth largely to Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator’s support, which has dovetailed with the growing awareness of an environmentally-conscious consumer base.

Selling retailers

One of the biggest challenges Repurpose faced was convincing retailers that there was a market for greener tableware.

Online market research firm a Statista estimates that nearly 220 million Americans used disposable cups and plates in 2017 and the figure is projected to increase to 227 million by 2020. Most disposable tableware is made from plastic, Styrofoam and non-eco-friendly materials.

“In the beginning, it (the greener tableware market) was just gaining market traction and we were having to convince customers to try it out,” Gropper said.

Scholibo and Gropper contend that consumers are interested in eco-friendly products now more than ever.

Repurpose’s line of sugar-cane based products isn’t alone in the compostable tableware market. There are products made from bamboo and palm leaf, also known as leafware.

But Gray, Repurpose’s advisor, said that Gropper has a knack for knowing her customers.

“For consumer products it’s different; you really have to understand what the consumer wants,” she said. “A lot of consumers do not like the color brown for environmental products, and Lauren was able to create something that looks white or similar to other products in that aisle. It makes a difference.”

Scholibo, Repurpose’s chief marketing officer, said the company’s goal is to get into broader merchandise consumer retailers such as Target Corp. and drugstores.

“We were ahead of the market, and we didn’t have a wave to ride off,” Gropper said. “Now the market has grown and it’s ready. The challenge now is keeping up with customer demand.”

In on Starbucks’ $10M Challenge

Repurpose Inc. will be among the entrepreneurs out to win the $10 Million NextGen Cup Challenge sponsored by Seattle-based Starbucks Corp. and Closed Loop Partners’ Center for the Circular Economy in New York.

Starbucks’ cups are currently made with about 10 percent recycled fibers, according to the chain. The NextGen Cup Challenge is part of an effort to bring a compostable and fully recyclable cup to market within three years.

“We are going to apply, like we have in the past, and we hope for the best,” said Corey Scholibo, Repurpose’s chief marketing officer. “We encourage them to find a compostable alternative to their current cup.”

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