Product Burger 9

Welcome to the 9th edition of Product Burger, being a slightly more slippery product analysis. We are diving into the sea and ‘harvesting’ some weeds as this week’s product is made using seaweed as a base.?

Notpla is developing a range of products using seaweed extract and today I focus on their core product, the liquid holding capsule. The founders started developing this while finalising their studies at Imperial College London. Formerly called Ooho, it has been used during various sporting events to hydrate athletes, such as during the London Marathon.?

The material used for these capsules is versatile and can also be found layering other products such as the ‘Notpla Ocean Paper’, a by-product of the production process for these seaweed films and capsules. If you attended this year’s Champions League final you will have eaten out of a Notpla food container ???

Wasting the?weeds?

True of any revolutionary product innovation, Notpla’s research and development journey hasn’t been easy. Determination has obviously come from the breadth of use cases for this liquid holding capsule in fighting (plastic) waste. Think of single use packs for sauces, oils (such as olive oil) and other liquids such as laundry detergent (in collaboration with MACK), beyond the obvious single use packaging for beverages.?

So where seaweed is available in abundance and also grows quickly, the raw materials for this are aplenty. In true sustainable fashion, having come from nature, the product breaks down quickly without leaving any ‘nasties’ behind. No more weeds wasted…?

Great but if I’m not directly buying a Notpla product, what’s it to?me??

The vast majority of us, whatever our views, don’t like wasting things. And littering nature sits on no one’s priority list, or so I hope. So besides feeling better about consuming food and drinks in single use packaging that doesn’t result in more waste, the benefits to nature not enduring more packaging that doesn’t break down for decades are clear. Be it ocean plastics, us humans consuming more micro-plastics or any other environmental challenge that unsustainable packaging are currently causing.?

Innovative products like Notpla’s capsules (or any of it’s other products) can only scale through public visibility. Once mass production is reached this pushes down costs and it becomes a viable alternative for companies of all sizes that need to package the products they are selling. This starts with you as the consumer knowing there is a better alternative to the current packaging used for your favourite drinks or food.?

Go seaweed or go?home?

Where it’s not solely Notpla’s liquid capsules that might prove a better alternative to existing packaging, the product is well underway to being used on such a mass scale in various industries (a viral side note: check out the whiskey shots example). So there are no more excuses from larger organisations to be ignoring sustainable packaging alternatives.?

If you see an applicability for this or any other Notpla product in your industry, why not raise it internally. It might seem like a long shot yet where no one might plant seeds to grow weeds in their garden, here it is about planting the seeds to grow more weeds to benefit the future of humans, animals and biodiversity alike.?

See you in two weeks ????