Happy Monday!

This week we’re focusing on PANGAIA, their packaging, and how you can improve yours. We cover:

PANGAIA: The Full Package?
5 Packaging Innovations Your Brand Could Try
In case you missed it: 🤝#2 - Meet the Partners: Sweep, featuring Rachel Delacour, cofounder and CEO.

> Good News Last Week

🎯 Finisterre announced The Finisterre Biosmock, their first fully circular and biodegradable jacket.

🎯 Wyke Farms has debuted the ‘world’s first’ carbon neutral branded cheddar. The cheese is made using 100% green energy, with electricity and gas sourced from Wyke Farm’s own self-generated solar power and from biogas generated from farm and dairy waste.

🎯 CRU Kafe certified as B Corp. Founded in 2013, they source premium coffee from all over the world.

⭐️ M&S announced it was rewarding customers for donating used clothing via their ’Shwopping’ scheme. Plan A sustainability programme, they’re working with Oxfam who will resell the items and raise money for their work.

⭐️ Lidl GB commits to increasing environmental standards of its UK fresh produce suppliers by signing up to LEAF Marque scheme. LEAF is leading global environmental assurance system a that recognises sustainably farmed products.

⚡️ The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is set to investigate the prevalence and impact of greenwashing in the fashion sector. The review will look at environmental claims and determine whether fashion brands are complying with consumer protection laws. If found, the CMA may mandate brands to change their consumer advertising methods or take court action.

> Click on each link to read more.

> Brand Spotlight

PANGAIA: The Full Package?

Founded in 2018, PANGAIA is a ‘materials science company’ first, fashion company second. What does this mean? Their investment in research and development (R&D) via their facility in northern Italy allows them to sell their material innovations direct to other businesses, providing opportunities for them to focus on partnerships and material licensing. At the same time, they’re funding their R&D mission by tapping into another revenue stream - direct to consumer sales via their e-commerce site. Focusing on essential clothing items, their hugely popular product ranges allow them to display their bio-engineered materials and innovative material technology. With celebrity investors and industry leading partnerships, PANGAIA have taken the world by storm in just four years.

What is innovative about PANGAIA’s products?

Put simple - a lot! Let’s take a look at a few of their pioneering product innovations:

PLNTFIBER™ & FRUTFIBER™ - these bio-based materials look and feel like cotton. PLNTFIBER™ uses renewable, fast-growing plants such as Himalayan nettle, bamboo, eucalyptus and seaweed, whilst FRUTFIBER™ repurposes food waste, turning banana leaf fiber, pineapple leaf fiber and bamboo into a new fabric.
AIR INK® - PANGAIA are pioneering water-based black ink made from air pollution, made from carbon capture technology. Sounds cool? We think so!
FLWRDWN™ - One of their first innovations, FLWRDWN™ is a down-fill material made using a combination of wildflowers, a biopolymer and aerogel.
PPRMINT™ is a durable odor control finish and broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatment that enables PANGAIA products to stay fresher for longer. Their goal? To reduce the number of washes your product needs, saving energy and water.

More recently, they’ve launched PANGAIA Denim. Launching styles made from wild Himalayan nettle (PANettle™) or rain-fed hemp (PANhemp™), it’s a significant innovation in the historically highly polluting denim industry.

What can brands learn?

As we’ve said before, investment in research and development is seldom wasted. This is a bet PANGAIA have cleverly positioned themselves to gain from both short term and long term - via their product sales and material sales. Riding the pandemic-infused wave of affordable but still luxury casual wear, PANGAIA executed their e-commerce strategy at the right time to see their entire business take off. Their brand reputation, boosted by their cult-inducing products, has facilitated opportunities for B2B partnerships many sustainable fashion brands spend years trying to secure.

*PANGAIA’s product labelling allows consumers to see their impact. Source: thepangaia.com*

Brands can also take inspiration from other brand defining decisions PANGAIA has made. Working with Green Story to label all their products, and display their impact digitally, PANGAIA offers customers full visibility into their impact (read more about this process here). It doesn’t stop there, they’ve worked with EON to provide products with ‘digital passports’ to boost transparency and circularity. Furthermore, they’ve focused on key aspects of the customer experience by working with partners like Tipa Compostable Packaging to provide high quality and biodegradable packaging for their products. Intrigued? Read on for more…

Support PANGAIA via their shop:

Shop PANGAIA

*PANGAIA PLNTFIBER™. Source: thepangaia.com*

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> Quick Take

5 Packaging Innovations Your Brand Could Try

As you’ve already seen with PANGAIA, proper packaging can really make a brand. Why? A consumers experience with your e-commerce site transitions from virtual to real when they get your product in their hands, and their first impression is often your packaging. It’s also a hugely wasteful problem, and one that many brands are forced to respond to. Even fast food giant McDonald’s have pledged to only use renewable, recycled or certified sources for their packaging, whilst providing recycling across all stores by 2025 (more here).

So, what can your brand do?

Beyond working with your current supplier to reduce cut-offs and minimise unnecessary materials, we suggest looking to new and exciting innovations to give your customers both the very best first impression and the very lowest impact on our planet.

We’ve shortlisted 5 diverse innovations which could make your product the whole package:

Aquapak - Aquapak’s Hydropol™ product replaces traditional Polyethylene to be replaced with a highly functional polymer that is ‘designed for the circular economy’, and so allows for multiple end-of-life options. Finisterre worked with Aquapak on their Leave No Trace bags, which break down into non-toxic biomass in soil and sea (should they escape into the environment).

TIPA Compostable Packaging - TIPA’s compostable films and laminates replicate the properties and functionality of conventional plastic materials such as Polyethylene and Polypropylene. They’ve worked with PANGAIA across their entire product range, providing a sleek and fully compostable sleeve for to protect products en route.
Boox - Boox aims to ‘ bring circularity to e-commerce’ via a Boox box that can be shipped, returned, then reused over and over again. A more circular step to tackling your packaging problem, they’ve worked with REN Clean Skincare.
Flexi-Hex - Flexi-Hex was born from a desire to protect surfboards in transit. Now, they’re working with brands like Seedlip. Their honeycomb design paper packaging is strong, adaptable, and biodegradable - and perfect for a stylish addition to your customer experience.
Nopla - Nopla make ‘packaging disappear’, in the best way possible. Made from seaweed and plants, Nopla biodegrades in weeks - not months or years. They’ve worked with Lucozade, and even Rubies in the Rubble are fans!

Utilising your own packaging innovations? Let us know! We’d love to share them with the rest of our community.

*Finisterre packages waiting for lucky customers. Source: finisterre.com*

> In case you missed it

🤝#2 - Meet the Partners: Sweep

Following the Footprints

🌱PANGAIA Knows Best: 5 Packaging Innovations…