Wonderfil CEO Amelia Eichel REFILL IS THE WAY

https://www.wonderfil.world/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amelia-eichel-92639a16b/

 What if we could refill our items perpetually instead of single use packaging? 

https://www.solutionsjournalism.org/

https://storytracker.solutionsjournalism.org/
https://doughnuteconomics.org/

https://systems-ledleadership.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

I'm here to help you make your packaging more sustainable! Reach out today and I'll get back to you asap.

This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

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Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guest is Amelia Eichel . She is the CEO and co-founder at Wonderful. How are you? Thanks, Corey. I'm great. How are you? Good. Really good. I can't wait to hear about this, this system that you've developed, in the world of packaging. Tell us what is wonderful and what do you do there? Absolutely. So as you mentioned, CEO and co-founder of Wonderfil, we got started in 2020. My co-founder, Shiloh Sacks, is the engineer, the CTO. and we are childhood friends actually. So our dads grew up together and we teamed up during COVID, to really address the problem of plastic bottle waste in the CPG industry, right? So trying to create. A refill and reuse system that was compatible with existing supply chains to systematically reduce plastic bottle waste and make it really easy for people to refill their daily use products. So like their shampoo, conditioner, soap, laundry detergent, in very convenient locations, whether that be the stores that they shop at regularly or their apartment lobby, or their dorm lobby, or their corporate campus. Such a great idea. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, well done. Thanks. And you, spent some time up here in the northwest, Lewis and Clark. That's right. Can you tell us a little bit about your background? one of my, one of my favorite schools. Absolutely. Yeah. So the idea for Wonderful came when I was studying entrepreneurship and leadership at Lewis and Clark. and I was a religious studies major actually. So I was focused on the psychology of religion. so I was really focused on understanding how our cognitive proclivities, have really shaped religion. And religion was really the first and most foundational human enterprise, right? And all of our other kind of collective endeavors like government science. Family and trade were all built in reaction to religion. So for my thesis, I ended up focusing on how social media, right in this modern media landscape was really influencing our religious landscape and specifically how our individual and collective conceptions of truth, were being influenced by social media. And so I started to feel like, oh man, we're on this really awful path right where we're moving away. From our ability to build consensus and collaborate and to collectively problem solve. And that's what really led me to Lewis and Clark Center for Entrepreneurship and Leadership. and I became really interested in donut economics and solutions journalism and systems change leadership. I don't know, maybe I could quickly summarize those three concepts. I feel like they were That'd be great. They're really. Foundational frameworks, for what helped me build. Wonderful. So, donut economics was delivered by, or it was developed by an economist, from Oxford, named Kate Raworth, and it's an alternative to GDP as a measurement for nash, nation's economic success, right? So, GDP, it solely focuses on economic output, and it says. Growth is inherently positive without considering how it's impacting human or environmental health. So Kate developed an alternative to GDP, which is this simple, yet profound image of, the donut, which is two concentric rings. So the inner ring being the social foundation that supports. Human needs. So access to food, water, healthcare, education. And then you have the outer ring, which is, the earth's planetary boundaries, right? So you have, the different weather systems and it basically says that you have to meet all of those human needs without overshooting, earth's, planetary boundaries. like we're currently doing with our linear take, make, waste economy. So I thought that was a really helpful concept. and then we have solutions journalism, which I did journalism during my undergrad at the school paper. and similarly, these, it's a network of journalists who realized that their reporting was. Helping to uncover a lot of problems, but they weren't really following up on, who was trying to solve those problems. And so they created this solution, story Tracker, which is a search engine where you can go find articles about solutions to all of our most pressing challenges, right? From youth, mental health, climate solutions, advancing democracy, things like that. And what I really love about the Solutions Journalism database is it's Talmudic in that you have this kind of base document, right? This first article about it being tried in a certain place and then what worked and what didn't work. And then someone can take that article, try to implement that solution somewhere else, then can contribute what worked and didn't work in their case. And then you have this kind of record, and this. Yeah, this record of people and experts who have tried those solutions. And I just think that's so important, when you're trying to make a change, is to have that kind of foundational knowledge and those case studies to refer back to. I love that. And then, yeah. Thank you. Thanks. so important to talk about, not only the problems that are around, but talk about solutions. So Well that Exactly. Thank you. Okay, so that is Solutions journalism. And then, Lewis and Clark was very focused on systems change leadership, Within their, center for Entrepreneurship and Leadership. And there's this concept, the concept of systems change leadership was developed and coined by Daniella Poppy Thornton, who was challenging the idea of the entrepreneur as a hero who comes in with this world changing very consequential idea, right? And imposes that onto society. With the goal of breaking systems and, trying to, yeah, just build this new alternative system where they can capture all of the market share. and so she developed this alternative vision for an entrepreneur as someone who is I. Collaborative who goes in and interviews the people who are already entrenched in the current system, interviewing them to try to understand what are the root causes of the problems that they are facing, and how do you collaborate and bring in innovation, while also leveraging that experiential knowledge of the people who have been working within that system for so long to either improve that system or build a better alternative, one that benefits more people. And so this method really led me towards, okay, if I want to change systems, this could be a method that I could use, right? I could use my journalism experience to go in and interview people who are working on within a system that I really wanna change. And so, Daniella, she developed a map, the system competition at Oxford. And I started working on a map, the system project, right before Covid hit that was focused on. Demand for fossil fuels. And that's what kind of led me towards really understanding that the fossil fuel industry is ramping up plastic production, right? So as the world focuses on decarbonizing the energy and transportation sectors, plastic is really the oil and gas industry's plan B. Right? And it's on track to make up roughly 20% of oil and gas usage by 2050. So I decided to focus my research on why consumer packaged goods companies were. So reliant on single use plastic, and that's how I identified the need for a scalable refill and infrastructure for liquid and cream products, that we use every day. And so we really built wonderfil in collaboration with CPG companies to make sure that our solution wasn't gonna break their whole business model and actually improve it and work within their existing supply chains And. Work within what they knew about their consumers, And work alongside consumers. Every iteration of Wonderful's refill stations were tested, in the field by people using it, giving us their feedback about what they did and didn't like about the experience. And we were able to iterate based on that feedback from both our partners and customers and our end users. and that's really, led to the current iteration of the refill station, which will continue to be improved upon. as we roll out in new environments. Great. And we were talking about just before the camera turned on that, I really liked the name. I think it's simple. I think it's, I think it's re memorable, like you said. who came up with it? Was that you or one of your partners? That was, yeah, that was my co-founder, Shiloh. Well done. Yeah. Yeah. Tell them I said nice work. I'll, she knows already. Yeah. So thank you. Let's talk a little bit about the partnerships that you have. I heard about your company through, Dr. Bronner, one of your partners. Yeah. Yep. So let's, how does that work? Do you approach them? Are you getting people reaching out to you saying, Hey, we wanna be a part of this? Yeah, so both. So we, Dr. Bronner's has been such an important and wonderful partner for us. super supportive from the very beginning. So wonderful. Really started as refill by students for students because I had just graduated and our entire engineering team at the beginning was getting their, were getting their degrees still at uc, Santa Cruz. So, we. Got funding through universities. And so we were able to build and deploy refill stations first at uc, Berkeley, and uc, Santa Cruz. And we needed product, to dispense, to get students using the machines as intended. And I reached out to someone at Dr. Bronner's on LinkedIn because they, I knew that they were manufactured in California, that they had. Organic fair trade ingredients, and they really checked all the boxes in terms of the kinds of soaps that we wanna be dispensing. and they were really excited when I reached out. They were like, yeah, you already have these repo stations up and running. We'd love to send you bulk soap. and so that kind of started our partnership. They came and the CEO and the sustainability team came to uc, Berkeley, to use the machine. And then we, they shipped one of our machines actually to their headquarters in Vista to have their employees use it and provide feedback. and they liked the machine so much that they ended up pitching it to Whole Foods. And that's how we Yeah. Got the deal with Whole Foods. So they've been tremendously supportive. We're, the CEO of Dr. Browner has actually just came and used, the machines in Whole Foods for the first time, so. We're working on, just making sure that it's a scalable model for them, right? Making sure that our pouches, that restock our machines can be distributed through their existing distribution channels, making sure that they can be filled quickly, making sure that they're meeting all of their QA requirements, all of that. So it's just so valuable to have, CPG partners and to build the system with their input. What, What kind of pushback are you getting? I think, from, not only from consumers, but yeah, from, let's say a store manager that walks over with their arms folded and says, what is this contraption? tell us Yeah. what's the pushback? Yeah. So I would say. floor space is always such a, it's just a top of mind, right? Sales per square foot is the number one metric that retailers care about. And so when you say, I need four by two feet of space for this refill station, you better have, sales data to back up allocating that, that store, space to this refill station. And luckily, we are, are. Our sales speak for themselves. And it really is a great way to use, we've been able to use unused floor space too, right? Because it's a kiosk and you can put it somewhere where you don't ha already have product, but it also works well as an end cap. so that I would say is like the main kind of metric that stores are looking for. and we're making sure that we have, a really good pitch that addresses that concern right away. But I'd also say, we don't get a lot of feedback. It's kind or a lot of pushback. it's, something that people see and they grasp and they're like, oh, why doesn't this, why didn't this already exist? and especially with consumers, like they're just delighted. They love the tap handle. it's really cool to be able to see someone. Like we hang out in Whole Foods and watch people use it, and then we ask their feedback after. and it's funny, like watching them, the screen, really walks them through how to use it. And so we see people's initial impulse to like use the tap handles in a certain way or something, or like the order that they want it to go in and then having to revert back to the screen for the next instruction. So we're always trying to tailor the ui, to make it as seamless as possible, but. That's been really great to be able to actually watch people use it when they don't know that they're being watched. That sounds creepy, but yeah. I would say, and I would say the biggest reason why there isn't like a wonderful in every store across the country, is because these things do take time and effort and. We really do need to identify that internal champion right at the store, at the brand, at the university, at the corporate campus, what have you. who's going to say, I am willing to dedicate the time and energy that's needed to get all of the approvals right, to bring in this new piece of equipment. and we, luckily we've had a lot of great champions, but are always looking for more. So if this is something that, you could see at your. A college campus or store or that your brand would like to use, totally reach out to me. Those warm intros and those emails and identifying people within the organization is the most helpful thing. I think the on-campus, refill station is brilliant. I, I think of a college student life. The last thing you wanna do when you're on campus is leave to the store to get something, the one thing that you need. Totally. And you need the same thing every week. And I did want to ask a little bit about logistics. Do you sell the container that will get reused or does consumer. Joe or Sally come in with their own or both. So at Whole Foods, for example, Dr. Bronner's has developed their like limited edition rainbow refillable bottle that people can buy for two bucks and then refill, or they can bring in their any bottle Really, we're a container agnostic system, and so you can dispense any amount of any product into any container. We will meter it accurately in real time, like a gas pump. I don't know if you've seen our ui, but you can see in real time how many ounces you've dispensed and how much it's costing you. and yeah, it's worked so well in college campuses for exactly the reasons that you've said. It's, college students are constantly running out of their shampoo. They don't wanna have to even wait for it to be delivered by Amazon. If they can just go down to their dorm lobby and. Refill like that is just so much more convenient and we're able to show that it's actually cheaper, right? Because we're cutting out the retailer margin. even in the retail setting, we're able to achieve a cost saving for consumers because of the efficiencies of bulk, but it's even more dramatic at co in colleges because we don't have the retailer margin. Well said. Yeah. And it's so convenient. And I think, like you said, they'll just develop that habit and get used to it, and then they'd be upset when it, if it wasn't there. Exactly. Yeah. yeah. Excellent. I want to talk a little bit about EPR, extended producer responsibility. Do you feel like that's going to help push for this, or do you think it will be a deterrent? Yeah, so I do think EPR, I'm really glad that organizations like Upstream and o other co. Organizations in California I'm most familiar with, California's SB 54 EPR law. And there was a lot of effort, to make sure that there were quotas in there for refill and reuse. And that has been tremendously helpful because it's so easy for us to track our impact, right? We, it's a smart system, so if a brand is dispensing a certain amount of product through our system, we can just easily say. This is how much plastic that you have reduced. This is how many gallons of your product have flowed through our system. And that's a really easy way to show that PRO right? Producer responsibility organization, that they are meeting that quota. and so of course, super valuable to have that regulatory motivation, for a branch to adopt a solution like this. but I also think it's just helped raise awareness among the general public that this is something that we, that really needs to be coming from. The producers and that, and consumers just are so fed up with having to pay more for sustainable products, especially when they're not even sure that, PCR recycled bottle is gonna be recycled in their town and it's likely not going to be. So it's, there's so much skepticism that I think it's just a really good idea to have a more unified plan for producers to work together to, advance refill solutions. I think it's great. I do think. There is a lot of focus on recycling, and other solutions that we haven't necessarily, that haven't gotten the traction, haven't gotten, the, that haven't worked as well as we had hoped. And so I worry that we're going to be, I. Potentially, going down a road where more focus is gonna be put on recycling and that's not gonna have the intended impact. but I do hope, I mean there is promise in recycling, advanced recycling techniques and I hope that will result overall in less plastic in the environment. Like at the end of the day, that's what we need. but we also need to be drilling less oil to produce less plastic, and that's where refill comes in. So I think having those quotas. Even if it's just 10, 15% is really going to get the ball rolling, right? And show consumers like, oh, I can refill cheaper and now more conveniently. And then that's the spur that we need. and then hopefully market forces just take over where it's. I agree out the competition based on price. I remember as a kid going shopping with my mom and seeing the bulk aisle and thinking, yeah, oh, that's really cool. We can just, it can just, I, as a kid, of course, you just wanna pull the lever and make, make a mess. But yeah. I think seeing consumers use it, it's probably a little bit nostalgic almost for them. Totally. And, feel like they're. Kind of part of the solution every time. Yeah. I wonder if you could put some kind of metric on the screen, like, you saved this much carbon footprint, or, I don't know. Yeah. if you could provide some kind of data to the consumer as they pull their product, that'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. We do have a little bottle counter on the screen. You, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, that's true. I love that. Every time I refill my bottle of water at the airport, I feel good about, I feel good about myself. So it's some, something similar to that. Very similar. Yeah. Great. Well, do you have plans to expand to different products like dry goods or anything like that in the near future? I. We're solely focused on liquids. we really, our core IP is that accurate liquid metering, right? So we were able to use machine learning to get our pumps extremely accurate, in a way that no one has been able to achieve before, right? To create this weights and measures certified liquid dispensing system. so we're really focused on just proving that out in the university markets and in retail, and then to expand that right to. Apartment buildings, corporate campuses, ideally hotels, right? so there's just a lot of. Room to grow just within liquids. and we really want to make sure, behind the scenes, we have our entire kind of bulk distribution, system right this way that we make sure that none of the intermediate bulk containers that restock the system ever end up in landfill. And so that's really powerful. I think having brands switch over to this reusable intermediate bolt container. There's just so much room to grow there as well. So that's what we're focused on. and we're focused on California right now, but are going to expand across the country in a couple years. That's, yeah. I think you'd have a lot of success in Oregon. yeah. As a, as an Oregonian and somebody, and you obviously lived here a long time too. Yeah. So, I think. This is a ripe market for that. Yeah. But let's talk a little bit about those logistics. So you get it in, like a five gallon container or 55 gallon drums, or how does that work? And then you deliver it to the dispensing unit. Yeah. and then you go pick up the empties and you take those and you send those back to the manufacturer. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes. So there are two different models. There's the model where the supplier fills the pouches, and that's what's going in retail, right? So Dr. Bronner's fills the pouches for the Whole Foods refill stations, and inside of those refill stations are 10 gallon reservoirs per scent. So peppermint has a 10 gallon reservoir, citrus, 10 gallons, right? and then the pouches that restock those reservoirs are 2.5 gallons. Though those pouches are shipped to Whole Foods, the staff restocks the reservoirs and they have, there's a little screen, there's a page on the touch screen where they can check the product levels and we send them a notification when it's 50% or below. and then once they empty that pouch. They store it in one of the boxes that the pouches come in and our system is connected to wifi, right? So it ha it's tracking Every single time the A pouch is emptied, it contributes to a tally in our database. And once they reach eight empty pouches, we send them a prepaid shipping label that they print out, stick on the box, ship back to us to be cleaned, and then we send those back to Dr. Bronner to fill and then. Similar in the model where we fill the pouches, right? For the universities. We're sourcing the product in drums, 55 gallon drums, filling the pouches, delivering them to the university. Uni University saves up empty pouches, sends 'em back to us. That sounds awesome. It's great. True. Truly circular. Truly zero waste. yeah. Well, well done. Congratulations to you. Thank you. And your team. This is really impressive. I really appreciate that. It's been awesome. we thought at the beginning, 'cause everyone else we had interviewed who had tried this said no, there's no way you can achieve circularity for the intermediate bulk containers. Like, that's just gonna be too expensive. That has not been our experience. They are really lightweight and cheap to ship around. so it's actually cheaper to send one of those pouches than the same amount of product in single use plastic bottles. So. I don't know what they are talking about, but, it's working for us. Well, let's prove them wrong. Yeah. Good for you. De well done. how do people, reach out to you? what's the best way to connect with you and your team? Yeah, so you can either message me on LinkedIn, Amelia, I, or you can email me. Amelia at Wonderful World, there's also a form on our website. Wonderful world to reach out to us there. So please do reach out. And how do you spell wonderful is it's W-N-W-O-N-D-E-R-F-I-L? Yes. One L. Alright. I love it. Well, thanks again, Amelia. Really appreciate your wisdom and all the work you're doing to make this a more sustainable planet. Well done. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Corey. Really appreciate it.