Background
Indonesia is the world’s second biggest plastic waste contributor into the ocean. As much as 90% of plastic waste goes to the ocean. Plastic waste turns into nano & micro plastic and it is then mistaken by sea animals as food. More than 1 million sea animals die every year because of plastic waste. More than 25% of the fish sold in the market is contaminated by plastics. On the other hand, Indonesia is blessed with a lot of natural resources, including seaweed that unfortunately can’t be absorbed fully by the market. To solve both problems, Evoware provides a solution to create innovations that can contribute to end plastic waste issue, with seaweed as the main material.
Our Innovation and Raw Material
Bioplastic is now an emerging material available in the marketplace. The big three biomaterials are poly lactic acid, poly hydroxyl butyrate, and starch. What we propose is an edible bioplastic, made from nutritious material without involving any chemical. It is good not only for us, but also for plants as fertilizer.
We designed two types of edible bioplastic as substitutes for small-format plastic packaging and metalized- laminated sachets:
- Single layer seaweed-based edible sachet for dry food products
- Dammar-coated seaweed-based edible sachet for liquid and semisolid food products
The patents have been granted and those are scalable (IDP000038531 and IDP000044135)
Why seaweed?
- Nutritious, safe, has no allergy risk, and halal,
- Abundantly available throughout the year,
- The agriculture is easy and it only needs 45 days to cultivate,
- Its waste can be used as fertilizers for plantations,
- It can only grow in healthy environments, so seaweed farmers will actively participate in maintaining the cleanliness of the seashore,
- Compared to the bioplastic from land crops, such as cassava or corn, the sustainability, quality and scalability of seaweed-based edible bioplastic is better,
- Indonesia has thousands of islands that have not been utilized to cultivate seaweed, so the raw material availability is secured,
The products are made directly from seaweed without /converting it into carrageenan, so it does not use chemicals nor possess any harmful effect.
Why dammar?
- Dammar is a non-timber forest product and Indonesia’s forest has more than 500 species of dammar
- Indonesia dammar is GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) and has been used as a food stabilizer, especially as an oil-weighting agent
- Dammar-coated seaweed edible sachet can inhibit bacteria growth in the food
- Utilizing dammar will improve the value and demand of dammar. Therefore, residents living near dammar agro-forests will actively prevent illegal logging and deforestation
Our Potential Applications
The potential applications are to solve the existing small-format plastic packaging that’s too light or worthless to be recycled:
- Sachets for dry food products such as but not limited to coffee, creamer, sugar, cereal, salt, pepper, and seasonings in instant noodles. Those products come with either single or metallized-laminates plastic packaging in the small formats. Based on the survey from Asia Food Journal, these conventional packaging aren’t convenient and may cause stressful feelings when the end consumers are in hurry.
- For liquid and semisolid food products, such as, but not limited to, sauces and seasoning oil in instant noodles.
- Food wraps comprising burger/sandwich and rice wraps. It is produced as a thin sheet to substitute plastic-laminated paper in which the plastic too light (its plastic is only about 20% (or 0.32 gram) from the whole paper)
- There are other potential applications of seaweed-based edible bioplastic. Not only for food products, but also for other small-format packaging, such as soap, shampoo, toothpick, straw, sanitary napkin, etc. Using our seaweed-based edible bioplastic could eliminate the usage of silicone paper in sanitary napkins could be eliminated
The edible and biodegradebale bioplastics are printable and heat-sealable. Those can be customized to have a specific taste, color and brand logo.
The Stakeholders
All stakeholders will benefit from the products:
- The demand of seaweed and dammar will increase, so the farmer’s income will increase and the bad credit percentage will decrease. It means that livelihood of farmers will be better.
- The edible bioplastic manufacturers will recruit employees and give a promising career. If the unemployment percentage decreases, the criminal rate will also decrease.
- The respective businesses in various industries, such as instant noodle and cereal manufacturers, hotels, airlines, and the like, do not need to pay for disposal and recycling cost.
- The consumers can prepare their meals and drinks faster and obtain more nutrients from those instant products.
- There will be no undegradable small format packaging in soil and oceans that endangers the ecosystem and animals there.
Therefore, it is a human-centered solution to fulfill consumer desires as well as to prevent the earth from further pollution-caused damage.
Target Market – Countries
In the early stage, we will start to target Indonesia’s small food and related industries as our first customers. Then target the global market, considering the fact that our products can solve major global issues since 70% of plastic waste comes from food and beverage packaging.
Why Indonesia?
- With a large population of 250 million, Indonesia is the world’s second biggest plastic waste contributor into the ocean after China, according to the publication of Jenna Jambeck in Science Journal. Indonesia is estimated to mismanage 3.2 million tons of plastic waste annually
- More than 25% of seafood in the Indonesian markets is contaminated by plastic
- The consumption of small format packaging in Indonesia, such as instant noodle seasoning, cereals, coffee and the complements, condiments, and wrap for fast food is very high.
*Market size of instant noodles 2016: (Global: USD 23.9bn, Indonesia: USD 2.3bn) and Market size of fast food 2016: (Global: USD320bn, Indonesia: USD1.5bn).
For the details, please refer our attachment (Evoware Company Profile & Business Plan)
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