COSMOFACTORY

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Deanna: Welcome to Cosmo Factory. A podcast by Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna, where we explore the entire cosmetics, personal care, and fragrance industry supply chain. I'm your host, Deanna Utroske. And here at Cosmo Factory, we look beyond the trends to discover the ideas, initiatives, and innovations that are truly advancing beauty.
Deanna: Let's get started.
Deanna: In this episode, we're talking about zero waste skincare ingredient production, about a single country supply chain, about regenerative ocean agriculture, and about how the science of seaweed can help the beauty industry transition away from petrochemicals. Joining me today on the Cosmo Factory podcast is Matthew Perkins, founder and CEO of Macro Oceans.
Deanna: Welcome.
Matthew: Hi, Deanna. Great to be here with you.
Deanna: Thank you so much. So let's start at the beginning here. Would you call Macro Oceans a biotech [00:01:00] company?
Matthew: Absolutely. I think we're a new generation of biotech companies, not making therapeutics, but making more sustainable products to shift our economy to more sustainable footing.
Deanna: Excellent. Um, and tell me more about the company then. How did it get started? What's your mission a little bit in bigger picture than, than that nutshell you've shared?
Matthew: Sure. So, uh, about three years ago, I realized that if we were really serious about getting to net zero, about moving away from fossil fuels, that means that all petrochemicals are going to get remade by, you know, Some sort of bio based alternative.
Matthew: So everything from surfactants to lubricants to, uh, you know, most famously plastics are going to get remade by bio based alternatives. And so there's this huge shift away. Uh, from petroleum based products, and we saw seaweed as this really incredible, sustainable, uh, low impact, low carbon, uh, source for bio based products.
Matthew: [00:02:00] And, you know, it goes in the ocean without any need for additional fertilizer or pesticide. It doesn't compete for, uh, land with food crops. It doesn't require any fresh water. And we thought, wow, this is really amazing. Uh, we're going to take seaweed and turn it into all kinds of amazing products. bio based chemicals and materials.
Deanna: Excellent. I love that. And so I happen to know that you have turned seaweed into a hydrating marine polysaccharide for use in the cosmetics and personal care industry. I'd love for you to, um, share a little bit about that ingredient, but also talk us through that supply chain that you have developed.
Matthew: Sure. So I think the place to begin is to really understand why seaweed, uh, is just such this is such a great source of bioactive compounds. So these brown seaweeds typically known as kelps, they grow in cold, uh, you know, relatively hostile environments, beautiful marine environments, but Challenging environments in places like Alaska, and, uh, so they need to protect themselves from UV from, uh, they need to protect [00:03:00] themselves from drying out.
Matthew: They need to protect themselves from the cold. And so they developed these, uh, incredible molecules, polysaccharides that provide all of these protection to the seaweed. And it turns out that that same protection can be translated, uh, and brought to human, uh, contacts. So in this case, uh, skincare, we're making a, uh, a bioactive compound for the skincare and, and it also actually works pretty well in hair care, but specifically skincare markets.
Matthew: Um, and, uh, so it provides hydration, anti redness, uh, soothing, a little bit of sun protection. Uh, it's really kind of an incredible molecule. And. Uh, that's what we're specifically bringing to, uh, the beauty industry at the moment. Um, you asked me about supply chains, uh, and I think it's a really interesting topic because nowadays there's more and more focus on, uh, from the consumer understanding, you know, where does your product come from?
Matthew: How is it made? Uh, can I trust all the ingredients? I'm, you know, there's a concern about things like palm [00:04:00] oil and these types of things. Um, and so people want to know where your, uh, where your ingredients manufactured, people want to know where it came from. And so we've built a supply chain that allows you to see all the way from full traceability, all the way from the farm to the face, as we like to say.
Matthew: Um, so these, this seaweed is grown in an ocean farm, it's manufactured in our site, uh, and that it's, you know, Delivered to the contract manufacturers where, uh, where things will get actually made into final products. And the brands are able to really see full traceability from, uh, the ocean farm to the, to the consumer.
Deanna: Cool. So let's start in the ocean farm. I like all the details. Um, I believe you mentioned that it's farmed or cultivated in Alaska. So talk about that process. What's happening there.
Matthew: Absolutely. So we work with, uh, fishermen and other, uh, coastal communities in Alaska. What they do is they go out in the fall and they collect wild, uh, sorus tissue, which is just a, uh, fancy [00:05:00] way of saying the tiny microscopic seed that we need to grow, uh, full, full grown seaweed plants.
Matthew: And they turn those, uh, all that tissue into these wonderful little seeds that they put out on their ropes in the fall. Um, they then plant the plant the farm which essentially is a putting ropes out in the ocean in an ocean structure and Uh, then over the winter the plant senesces So essentially sleeps while it's cold and dark and as soon as the spring arrives pretty much right now uh, these these plants wake up and they start to grow very rapidly so from Uh mid early march till about mid may they grow from you know, maybe You Uh, 10, 20 centimeters up all the way up into multiple meters and, uh, and then they harvest these beautiful long blades.
Matthew: Uh, and that's when they deliver them to us. And that's when the process begins.
Deanna: Excellent. Excellent. Um, and can you tell us a little bit about what's going on in that process?
Matthew: Sure. So we've developed a [00:06:00] pretty unique way of storing the seaweed so that we rapidly can rapidly process it and, uh, get out all those really great, uh, high quality bioactive compounds to make our product.
Matthew: Um, and, uh, so that process is all, uh, done in a very gentle way with green chemistry. So no harsh. Uh, toxins or solvents. Um, and, uh, then we take the remaining, um, fractions that are left over the pulp and we, uh, we make a secondary extract. We're making alginate for the food industry. So this is a very.
Matthew: Flexible biopolymer that can be used in a wide range of applications, and we're also making, uh, some pulp based products. So we've been making some packaging prototypes, uh, to essentially use 100 percent of the material. So there's, it's completely zero waste. So the only thing at the end that's left over is a little bit of water that we, uh, can clean and then, uh, put back into the, uh, municipal water supply.
Matthew: Um, and [00:07:00] so it's a very clean, sustainable process where we use 100 percent of the material.
Deanna: I'm wondering if by valorizing all those fractions of the seaweed and the pulp that you've just described, does that actually help make this zero waste strategy more economically feasible? Now you have, you know, More revenue streams from the same product as it were.
Matthew: Yeah. So it not only gives you that, uh, really great sustainability angle. It also helps us, uh, as a business to make money from the seaweed. And, you know, that's, that's a good thing because it allows us to, um, be able to, yeah, grow our business more rapidly.
Deanna: Well, I, I asked that question also because so many of the sustainable solutions in the cosmetics and personal care industry are cost prohibitive.
Deanna: Right. The manufacturer can't adopt them or the brand can't afford to work with them. Um, and something about the strategy just makes it sound a little bit more feasible. Am I making that up or?
Matthew: No, that that's 100 percent correct. So what we've seen is [00:08:00] that, uh, we can by separating out the various components and Having some high value products like in bioactives, which are very specialized molecules that do specialized things Uh, we can help bring these other products which are really commodities, uh to market much quicker So if you're thinking about packaging you're obviously competing against plastic plastic is ubiquitous and incredibly cheap and you know Brands would like to be more sustainable, but they obviously won't pay three or four or five times as much for their packaging, right?
Matthew: They need to have something that's effective cost effective in their packaging In their actual solution. And so what we're trying to do is meet those price points, meet those performance criteria, and bring you this incredible sustainability story. And if you can put all those three things together, then brands are like, Oh, well, it's a no brainer.
Matthew: I want to work with this.
Deanna: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. And I'm wondering too, if you can talk a little bit about. Partnerships in terms of sustainability. So many times when I speak with industry suppliers, I'm hearing more and more [00:09:00] about the significance of partnerships when it comes to sustainability or striving for circularity.
Deanna: Is that true at macro oceans as well? Or?
Matthew: Yes, I would say we definitely, uh, have easier time with folks who are ready mission aligned and are trying to, uh, you know, bring sustainability into their products. I would say it's still early. I'd say The number one thing, though, that we start with is performance, because people, uh, at the end of the day are buying your product because it does something unique and special, and it really works.
Matthew: So that's the most important thing, and that's where we begin the conversation. But people who are thinking ahead, because their consumer is moving, and the consumer wants, more of these products to be things they can trust and that are sustainable, uh, then they tend to be really good fits because they, they get that we bring the performance and then they really understand and value the sustainability angle too, which is, which is the future.
Matthew: So I think, [00:10:00] uh, it definitely helps, but it's not, it's not the most important thing for us at this point.
Deanna: Sure. Sure. No, that's, I think that's accurate. Sustainability, um, is a promise a lot of folks are making and it's still very, um, It's not really what sells. I think in the supply chain space, but even in the consumer space, I hear that all the time that rarely is sustainability going to be the final or single determining factor in a purchasing decision.
Deanna: But you mentioned performance of your ingredient. Can you talk us through some of the clinical data or the testing that you've done?
Matthew: Absolutely. So we've done some testing of hydration for skin at, uh, so essentially immediately application. And then after six hours, Uh, and in our initial run, we saw a 20 percent improvement or 19 percent improvement versus, uh, versus other, um, Uh blank serums and other things and so we've seen really good results, uh for this product and It's the thing that we really like about this product too is it's pretty flexible So [00:11:00] you can use it, uh in a moisturizing sort of plump and prime serum type of format.
Matthew: You can also use it in a Makeup remover. We've made some demo products that are really neat. Um, and happy to share more about them if that's helpful. But, uh, yeah, we've seen it incredibly, incredibly flexible. We even have one client who's working, uh, with it in the hair care application. You know, we weren't really envisaging it for that, but they said, Oh, we want to try it out in this format.
Matthew: And it provides really great results, um, in hair care as well. So, uh, that's one of the great things about these, uh, these polysaccharides is they're really pretty flexible, um, compounds.
Deanna: That's wonderful. Yeah. Let's do talk about some of those product prototypes. Are they effectively, um, starter formulas.
Deanna: Are they a good place for, um, folks trying to build a product with your ingredient to start?
Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So we made them not because we're going to ever sell something to the consumer, but to provide inspiration for, uh, what you, what you could do with them. And they have really cute names. So one of them is called mermaid pearl.
Matthew: That's the plump and prime serum. It's a [00:12:00] sort of moisturizer, um, sort of plump and prime the skin. Uh, then we've made a, uh, soothing off the sun spray, which we're calling, uh, A seaweed spray. So that's, uh, kind of a fun one too. And it's got this really cool green color, uh, not from the seaweed, but, but from some other things that we put into it.
Matthew: And then the final one is the biphasic, uh, makeup remover, which is also called wash to shore, which is kind of fun. And, uh, that one is, is also really, uh, you know, neat product and just kind of to demonstrate the versatility of the applications. And we're happy. We give you all of the formulas. You can use them straight out of the box.
Matthew: You could. Uh, tweak them to your needs. And, uh, you know, we have also done all the costing for these things. So making sure that it's, um, you know, that it's obviously not cost prohibitive. So
Deanna: can you speak to some of the details you mentioned, the colors green and the one product is, you know, product prototype is not from the seaweed.
Deanna: Can you speak to, um, color, odor, texture, percent used in formulation? Any of those [00:13:00] details?
Matthew: Sure. Absolutely. So. The product itself, uh, has a sort of light brown color. Um, but we've seen when you put it into different formulations. So for example, in the, uh, plump and prime serum, which is, which is pearly white, uh, you don't see it at all.
Matthew: So you don't at the use levels that we typically recommend, which is about two to 3%, uh, you're not really seeing any, uh, discoloration of those, of those materials. Um, and so we, we see that as, Um, and it's obviously not not really problem. There's no smell either. There's, uh, so it's odorless. And, uh, yeah, people have had really great results formulating with it.
Deanna: How would you describe the texture?
Matthew: Um, the texture. So our product is a combination of our extract and glycerin. So you get some of that glycerin feel as well.
Deanna: Excellent. Excellent. A few minutes back, you talked about green chemistry briefly. And I, I think it's important to mention that green chemistry is not an arbitrary term, right?
Deanna: This is not something that's imprecise. It was actually, um, An expression [00:14:00] coined I believe in the late nineties. Um, and the framework that was established. I made some notes because I'm fascinated by these sorts of details. Um, a gentleman called John Warner. Um, and then Paul on on tosses. Do we know this?
Deanna: Um, forgive me, Paul, wherever you are, that probably wasn't correct. Um, but their outline or framework for green chemistry is still very much used today. I know the, um, American Chemical Society uses their 12 principles of green chemistry. Can you speak a little bit more to what that looks like in your production process and why it's important?
Matthew: Yeah, so there are 12 principles, as you mentioned, and I, I'm not going to remember all of them off the top of my head, but, uh, they, they include things like, uh, having very energy efficient reactions. They use things like, uh, using non toxic solvents. They use things like, um, having, uh, very little sort of excessive waste.
Matthew: chemists, chemicals. And so there's a whole range of different [00:15:00] criteria that you design your process by. And essentially what they're trying to do is to, uh, look at ways of making chemical processes as sustainable and as, uh, low energy, low input, low resource as possible. And, uh, so if you start thinking about your process from that perspective, you really take a different approach to how you do it.
Matthew: So I just, to give you an example, you could, uh, take the seaweed and apply Some pretty harsh chemicals to it, to get a really high extraction yield. Um, and that'd be great. Cause we recover more of the material and it's easier for us to obviously sell that and make more money, but, uh, that does create downstream problems.
Matthew: You end up having to, you know, dispose of your solvents. Uh, you have to actually handle those. There's more, uh, complexity for, uh, your, uh, Both your employees, but also when you then have to report all those things to your, your, um, customers. And so we just found the more we looked at it, that actually when you adopt a green chemistry [00:16:00] approach, it makes everything.
Matthew: So much easier because you don't have to deal with most of those problems Yes, you get a little less yield But you have a much cleaner more sustainable product and um a lot of those kind of headaches if you like uh from the manufacturing side go away, so Uh, it's really been great and we've spent a lot of time, uh thinking about it, but also That's where the innovation comes because you have to be clever about how you work with your material.
Matthew: Otherwise, if you have a really low yield, like you're just going to lose money every time you manufacture. And so, um, it requires quite a bit of tinkering in the lab. Uh, we've spent a couple of years really working in scaling up our process. So. It's not easy, but it's definitely worth it.
Deanna: Yeah. Wow.
Deanna: Excellent. Thank you. Let's think a bit about the fact that you've built this supply chain within a single country. And I think it's a little bit more remarkable, um, or distinctive in the United States. I think in some other countries around the world, it's not as unusual to have a single country supply chain.[00:17:00]
Deanna: Um, but in the states often, you know, there are something a process or an input that is coming or happening in a different country. Um, talk about why you did that and the response you're hearing.
Matthew: So first up, the response has been phenomenal. I think that People say to us, wait a minute, this is manufactured locally in the United States, and you could tell us what farm it came off.
Matthew: People just don't believe us, because it's really not something that's been done. And we see that not only in cosmetics, but when we also have been looking at food for alginates and some other materials. You know, people, this is the first time they've seen this in maybe 40, 50 years. And I think it reflects a couple of things.
Matthew: First, it it's about transparency and traceability be becoming things that people really, um, value, but also haven't really found anybody actually able to deliver on those things for them. And secondly, you know, with COVID and, um, [00:18:00] everything that happened with supply chains, there's been a big push to people to reshoring and bringing production, um, closer to home.
Matthew: And so that has definitely worked in our favor. Where there are now, yes, they are still price sensitive. You can't sell your product for, you know, two, three, four times as much. You have to be price competitive, but at the same time, if you can deliver that, then you're going to win every time because they are very happy to have something that's closer to home and seem to be more resilient, I would say.
Matthew: Um, For us, the reason that we are manufacturing locally is because seaweed is 90 percent water. So, um, you know, we are currently manufacturing in California, but our plan is to move that as close to the Place of where they're growing the seaweed as possible because you don't want to move water around, right?
Matthew: If you're moving one kilo of seaweed and it's 90 percent water, you're moving 900 grams of water wherever it's going So you want to make sure that uh, you manufacture close to [00:19:00] the source and so eventually that's that's our plan as we scale up
Deanna: Excellent. No, thank you. Can I ask you then? What's the response from other countries?
Deanna: Are you i'm assuming you're not selling this only within the states
Matthew: So right now we're selling in North America. So United States and Canada, uh, throughout distributor, uh, uh, organics. Uh, and we are doing some direct sales too. We have been actually talking to other countries. Uh, so we've had some initial conversations in Asia and also in Europe.
Matthew: Um, You know people actually so if you're a seaweed farmer, you want us to come and start buying seaweed from you So we have had a lot of interest from folks, uh, particularly in northern europe But also in chile and in new zealand and other places that are farmers now trying to grow seaweed They're looking for buyers, uh for their product and they see that we're Making progress here, you know, with our ingredients and they want us to come and buy.
Matthew: So on that side, the supply is there and [00:20:00] we're really just about scaling up the demand. I think the value proposition for the U. S. Customer is pretty much the same for other customers. Um, they're all looking in Europe and in other countries. They are looking for these kind of sustainable, high performance, natural ingredients.
Matthew: Um, and, uh, we're planning on doing that in lots of geographies.
Deanna: Yeah, interesting. So it wouldn't necessarily only be production in the States. It would be then production wherever the seaweed is cultivated.
Matthew: Correct. I mean, we, we think that there's actually a really interesting angle here. If you're a European company, why do you want to buy this bioactive from Alaska?
Matthew: You want to buy the bioactive from You know, Norway or somewhere that's close and that people feel more affinity to and have more local connection to that's part of your marketing story, but it's also part of your sustainability promise. You know, this thing should be as local as as possible. So we definitely see that over the the midterm Uh as something that's going to be really exciting and interesting to [00:21:00] do with customers around the world.
Deanna: Excellent. No, I love that Um, so I want to ask you sort of a podcast Specific question that the key concept right now for the Cosmo Factory podcast is ideas to innovation. So I'm hoping you can summarize how you and your team moved this starting idea or what was the starting idea for your company and how you turned it into this innovative ingredient.
Deanna: Maybe talk a little bit about the business challenges you overcame. Um, yeah. What was the spark? How did this happen?
Matthew: Well, the starting idea really was trying to be part of this climate solution instead of worrying about the climate crisis. And fundamentally, if we all decide to do something and do something a little different and change the way we work, we can solve this challenge.
Matthew: And the challenge that I saw was just this enormous amount of our economy that's built around petrochemicals that needs to be shifted away to something more sustainable. And seaweed to me was this. incredible [00:22:00] untapped resource that No one had really thought about the ocean is vast and there's so little of it is cultivated for seaweed And I thought well, this is this is a great opportunity now going from great opportunity and idea into like real thing that you can Sell is uh, definitely a messy, uh complicated process, but essentially Then we what we did was we said, okay well where where do we think is a really great place to start and beauty for us was a great place to start because uh, it's a at the end of the day people here value, uh performance, but they also value stories and Uh the story of how you can shift the world to something more sustainable how you can have You can essentially have your cake and eat it because you get to have this really high performance product that That does all these great things in your skincare application that you want but you also get to bring this new level of sustainability to your Customer, uh, is something that kind of puts those two things together.
Matthew: And it was kind of a great place for us to start. So we definitely had a lot of challenges [00:23:00] along the way and everything from, you know, raising capital to, uh, figuring out all the regulatory, uh, things we had to get through to be, uh, FDA compliant and, uh, actually, honestly, just trying to understand the beauty industry, which for us as outsiders was completely new.
Matthew: Yeah. And, uh, connecting, you know, the dots, so to speak, as to how you launch a successful product, uh, was, it's definitely, we're still on that, uh, journey and, but it's been a lot of fun.
Deanna: Can you tell me how big your team is and how many farmers you're working with? That sort of
Matthew: stuff? Sure. So we work with two farms at the moment in, uh, in Alaska that are, uh, Probably the leading growers, uh, and have our ability to produce way more seaweed than we can possibly process at this point.
Matthew: Uh, we, uh, and we're still a pretty small team. We're eight people. Uh, so mostly on the science and engineering side doing, uh, manufacturing product development, science and research. And, uh, and then there's a couple of us on the commercial side of the business.
Deanna: Excellent. Excellent. And I'll be a little [00:24:00] cynical here.
Deanna: I'm wondering, um, If there might be environmental risks, or even what I think of as invisible waste streams that you're overlooking at this point, and I just wonder how you're strategizing to further improve your process or sort of watch out for that detail. I know, um, you're certainly not the first company cultivating seaweed, um, But there have to be ramifications.
Deanna: How are you, how are you sort of making sure that you are doing good?
Matthew: Yeah, it's, it's a great question. And something we spend time thinking about, obviously it doesn't make sense to start a business that makes things worse than where we began. And so it's something that we are very conscious about, um, in the, in all the decisions that we make.
Matthew: I think on the cultivation side, uh, one of the reasons we really like Alaska is because the state government there is. Keen to grow the industry, but it's also acutely aware that it has this bountiful natural resources that it wants to protect And make sure it does it in a thoughtful way. And so all the farms we work with are [00:25:00] permitted Um, they are not allowed to just put farms wherever they want them They have to look at the impacts with marine life.
Matthew: They have to look at the environmental impacts and so as we scale up we're gonna be studying that with The state agencies, as well as the university of Alaska to understand, you know, exactly what the marine ecosystem impacts are and kind of how we scale the supply side in terms of our production, there's still places where we can improve our, uh, for example, like Energy efficiency.
Matthew: We still have some things to do to improve our wastewater. So there's definitely in process improvements that we can make, uh, and staying true to our principles in terms of green chemistry and really trying to be sustainable and obviously. Valorizing all of the streams allows us to reduce waste as well.
Matthew: So that's an important thing. And one of the things we will do over the next, uh, of the next year is to do us what they call a life cycle analysis, which we'll look at, you know, the energy impacts as well as the sort of waste impacts of the [00:26:00] process so that we can have really robust numbers for our customers as well.
Matthew: So. That's something that we're keyed. And we, we'd love everybody to do that because then, you know, there's a benchmark, you know, people are able to look at different products and say, this one uses this amount of energy. This one uses, you know, five times as much. Well, if the performance is equivalent, why would I choose the one that it uses way more energy?
Matthew: And I think that's where the industry, uh, Potential has potential to move on really try and think, you know, carefully about the choices about how they formulate products.
Deanna: Absolutely. No. And I really appreciate your sharing that. I think, um, you know, transparency is just a key factor. We think about it again a lot in the consumer space, um, you know, and I'm always excited when I see brands sharing details of why they've chosen to work with this packaging material instead of that packaging material or admitting that no, this isn't recyclable.
Deanna: It's Um, I think that's always, um, very good information to help the consumer make a decision, feel informed, know that the brand they're buying for is honest. And I, I feel very much the same way on the [00:27:00] supply side of the industry. So, um, thank you for being candid there.
Matthew: Yeah. And look, I think the consumer is not dumb and we shouldn't treat them as such.
Matthew: I mean, they will very quickly realize that something is not really recyclable. Um, or they'll very quickly realize that, uh, your product is more sustainable or less sustainable. And so. The brands that are meeting the consumer, you know, with that sort of level of honesty and transparency are the ones that get a win.
Matthew: And we think the same is true on the supply side.
Deanna: Um, so I, I know it's early days, right? You've commercialized this ingredient several months ago, not even a full year. Um, I'm wondering if you can reflect already on how feasible a zero waste ingredient supply chain really is. Can the macro oceans approach realistically be scaled maybe even beyond what you've described in terms of working with other, um, countries and cultivating seaweed, but for other ingredients?
Deanna: Um, sort of big picture. Can this, can this system work?
Matthew: I think it's [00:28:00] hard. I'm not going to say that it's easy and everyone can do it because I don't think that's realistic. I think that what it really takes is some leadership from the brands, uh, to say that they're going to try. And I think, um, it's been, you've seen this actually over the last few years, that the way that a lot of the big brands approach a lot of the net zero challenges was through offsetting, you know, with common credits.
Matthew: And a lot of people have said, you know, actually, we don't, we don't think that's actually A real way to get to where you need to go You need to be more ambitious and you need to really think about how your products are made And also where your ingredients come from so I think if we get commitment from a couple of the big brands to really try and do this at scale I think there's the rest of the industry will move with them.
Matthew: Um, And I think that there need to be more supply options as well Um, but i'm not going to say it's easy and there's there's Definitely a lot of waste streams that, uh, that are not really valorized right now. Um, and, but I [00:29:00] think if people are creative, they'll find ways of doing it and they will move if the brands are asking for it.
Matthew: Um, so at the end of the day, we're all driven by what con, what customers want. And so, you know, if customers are saying this is really important to us and we're, we're going to only start sourcing these types of ingredients, then, uh, people will. Uh, people will move. So
Deanna: yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Do you want to say more about the packaging options?
Matthew: Yeah, so the packaging option is is really neat. It's essentially a molded, uh paper product So what it does is it blends our seaweed pulp with paper? Okay, um, and you can mold it into different formats So a lot of companies are using Molded paper to, you know, hold a bottle inside a box when they ship it.
Matthew: And it's really great for direct to consumer businesses that, you know, have more packaging and are trying to reduce the waste inside their, their packaging. And so, yeah, we're working with brands that want to try and, you know, have this incredible sustainability story. You know, the first thing that always happens to us when we go and talk to brands is, Oh, we really love your ingredient.
Matthew: The [00:30:00] bioactive is really cool. We're going to use it. Oh, by the way, I have a problem with my packaging. Can you help me with that too? And so now we're responding to that essentially. Trying to come up with solutions that that really work. So this is, uh, think of it as a molded package packaging solution that you can put inside your box.
Matthew: Um, that allow you to reduce the amount of additional sort of paper materials and other plastic materials that you that you have. So
Deanna: wonderful. So before I say my final thank yous, I want to let everyone who's listening here today know that you and I have actually been speaking live here at Cosmo Pack, which is a supply side trade fair that takes place as part of Cosmo Prof Worldwide Bologna.
Deanna: So Matthew, I want to just Say that it's been my pleasure. I thank you very much for joining me on the Cosmo factory podcast.
Matthew: Well, it's first for me and I'm very excited to be here and thank you for the opportunity and I'm going to go, go enjoy the show now.
Deanna: Excellent. Thank you so much.
Matthew: Thank you.
Deanna: Thank you so much for listening.
Deanna: If you find the Cosmo Factory podcast useful, please take a moment to leave us [00:31:00] a five star review and share your thoughts. So even more cosmetic industry professionals can discover the Cosmo Factory. I'm Deanna Utroske. Please join me again next Tuesday for a new episode of the Cosmo Factory podcast.