EVOWARE’s edible and biodegradable sachets and wraps directly made from seaweed as main material

Replacing the conventional small-format plastic packaging with Edible grade and Biodegradable grade made of sustainable material (seaweed)

50 42

Written by Noryawati Mulyono

Updated on 23:22, Sep 02, 2017

This edible bioplastic is applicable for sugar, coffee , seasoning sachet, burger/rice wrap and not limited to semisolid and liquid packaging like shampoo/lotion sachet

Now instant noodles is super instants..Just open the lids of noodle cup, pour the hot water and you can enjoy it directly

You can now enjoy delicious and healthy burger wrapped with our edible bioplastics!!

Our edible and biodegradable bioplastic sachets and packagings are made from seaweed. A real solution to end plastic waste that mostly came from food and beverage packagings and even non food sectors. With our packagings, we also give positive impact for seaweed farmers. Many of seaweed farmers live in poverty and their childrens suffer from malnutrition and uneducated. Growing this business means increasing their livelihood and wellbeing.

Evoware Co-sales with one of the organic soap producer. The soap is also made of seaweed. The soap packaged with our biodegradable wrap, ready to serve the hospitality sectors, such as hotel, cruises etc

Our soap packaging is customized in terms of format and color. And it is also printable.

The inside look of our food grade sachets

Our food grade centre-heatseal sachet. This is made with the request of prospective customer that sells popsicles.

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)

Idea Title

Ecolution for your future

Company / Organization Name

EVOWARE is a social enterprise that produces sustainable products from sustainable materials

Website

www.evoware.id

Where are you / your team located?

Jakarta, Indonesia

How does this Idea redesign unrecyclable small format plastic items that often end up as waste?

This shows how our products contributes to the whole value chain and stakeholders. This is called the circular economy.

Our redesign concept is to focus on adding the packaging function as nutritious food without changing the taste & quality of the food. We have two grades: BIODEGRADABLE AND EDIBLE. They are directly made from seaweed and contain no hazardous chemicals. The process is mild and uses less water than the common seaweed processing industries. When disposed in land, it will be natural fertilizer for plants and decompose in 2 months. The shelf life is up to 2 years without using preservation.

Which use cases does your Idea apply to?

This idea supports Use Case 1 for dry, semisolid, and liquid products, such as food condiment, cereal, coffee, and sauce. Our edible small sachet solves the problem at the root as it’s safe to be consumed, very convenient and biodegradable (if you don’t want to consume it). It doesn’t create waste yet gives health benefits and can be used as fertilizer for plants. It is designed to cut the mess from the usage to the waste management.

In what geographical context or area does your Idea plan to operate / solve?

In the early stage, our facility will be in Indonesia because of its high potential market and high mismanaged waste. Considering the fact that the products can solve major global issues, we are optimistic to fulfill the demands of other countries.

How do you envision scaling up your Idea?

Evoware uses Online approaches (social media, informative and interactive website, and online marketplace) & Offline approaches (master dealers, sole agents, distributors, resellers, direct sales and co-sales with other products). We are willing to share our technology with others by patent royalty or transferring technology. When we can reach large scale production, the impact and productivity will be more scalable The top challenges and the solution refer below.

At what stage of development is your Idea?

Piloting: You have started to implement your solution as a whole with a first set of real users. You may have started to develop a business model for your idea, including identifying key customer segments, relevant partnerships, go-to-market strategy, and draft financials.
Full-scale roll-out: You have developed a pilot, tested, and analyzed the impact of that pilot as it pertains to the problem scope. You are ready to expand the pilot significantly and begin to scale.

Please describe how becoming a Top Idea and working with the Think Beyond Plastics Accelerator Program will help to accelerate your solution.

Goals: become an impactful edible bioplastics manufacturer with scalable production capacity Steps after the Program: 1. network to global partners: businesses, NGOs, government, etc to make our goal happens 2. Improve production facilities to be able to achieve the food safety and ISO standards, 3. Regulation and permits, such as FDA approval depending on the countries that we want to target, 4. Working capital for purchasing seaweed per container for cost effieiency

Please describe from where your Idea emerged

I often wake up late and do not have enough time for breakfast. I wished that I did not need to open the cereal sachet, so I could put the sachet in my drinking bottle and drank it when I was on the way to school. My high curiosity led me to take our chemistry program in the university. To make the long story short, I have committed to focus my research on bioplastic with many achievements/awards in the sectors, and will strive to improve the characteristics of bioplastic to wider applications.

Tell us about your work experience

I’m Chemist and Food Scientist with passion in developing bioplastic. I received several grants and award on bioplastic. I have published my research in scientific journals.

Please describe your legal and organizational structure

PT Evogaia Karya Indonesia is an Indonesian private company legal entity founded in April 2016. For the full team profile, please refer to attachment

Please describe, in detail, your business model and how you intend to test and iterate this model.

Refer to above. for detail business model. The top challenges are Price (solution: approach our product as a food which gives added value and solved if we can go to large scale), product storage for edible packaging (solution: can use dammar coating which is also edible. and we can work together with container providers, such as go-box to make our business/consumers easier) and education about edible packaging (transparent about our food safety production standards and key strengths)

Please explain how your innovation will work within, potentially improve, and provide benefit to the plastics system.

Our solution is better than other existing bioplastics in term of raw material and finished goods (see pic below) . 1) oxodegradable plastic, which is made of 98% conventional plastic and up to 2% oxidator. The plastic causes small pieces of plastic, evenmore micro- and nanoplastics and can be inhaled by soil and sea animals. 2) biodegradable plastics derived from starch (such as corn, cassava) will cause land and food crisis and takes long time to grows (cannot use the same land area).

Please describe, in depth, how your solution will reduce the overall environmental footprint of packaging.

Main Solution: 1. we absorb green house gas when the farmers cultivate the seaweed as our raw material; 2. Substituting non-biodegradable packaging materials; 3. mutual partnership with industries whose packaging are small-format plastic and metallized film; 4.education through event activation. Other solutions: 1. green building for our factory and office. 2. convenient dormitory for our employees and using solar panel; 3. Use physical and bioremediation treatments in our water treatment

Please outline how your design, material, and delivery choices will influence price, and how you intend to address the price increase that may result from this solution.

Our co-branding and sales strategy in small scale stage

We divide our business stage in 3 scales based on daily capacity and price: 1)small (100 sheets) with price USD41cent; 2) medium (15,000 sheets) with price USD15cent, and 3) large (280,000 sheets). with price USD5cent. Our default size for edible bioplastic is 10x13 square inch, but it can be customized upon request. The price is more competitive in the large scale. In our small scale, we will approach our product as food (for edible grade), use co-branding strategy such as with soap company

Please explain how your solution will impact user behavior, and what design considerations you've included to ensure easy and intuitive interactions with your Idea.

Our products will be successful in the marketplace if the target business are willing to change the conventional packaging with our bioplastic and the end-users accept the products packaged in our edible bioplastic (see 3 examples of user experience above). For business, we will use closed food container for edible products and open to cooperate with container providers to make the business easier and they can just choose the dammar coating one since it is resistance to water

Please describe how you intend to use the prize funding, if selected as a Top Idea. Be specific.

1. Machinery to make the product more competitive in price, 2. Improve production facilities to be able to achieve the food safety and ISO standards, 3. Regulation and permits 4.Working capital for purchasing seaweed per container/bulk

Written by

Noryawati Mulyono

Attachments (1)

Evoware Company Profile & Business Plan.pdf

Details contain company background, social enterprise model, business plan, our social impact measurement and the team profile

This inspired (1)

Simple!

50 comments

Join the conversation:

Comment

Team

Marisa_A null

20:40, Sep 03, 2017

Hey Noryawati Mulyono . I saw your company or you at the SGEFF last night on the panel and saw your product close up. I wanted to speak to you but I had to rush off. Are you still in Singapore? If you are free would love to have a chat about your sachets for our idea which is also based on this platform. Pls get in touch with me.

link