Traceless Materials CEO Anne Lamp

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https://www.traceless.eu/

In this conversation, Cory Connors speaks with Anne Lampe, CEO and co-founder of Traceless Materials, about the innovative approaches to sustainable packaging. Anne shares her journey from being a process engineer to founding Traceless, which focuses on creating compostable materials from agricultural byproducts. They discuss the applications of these materials, the importance of consumer choices in sustainability, and the future growth plans of Traceless Materials as they aim to make a significant impact on plastic waste reduction.


Takeaways

Anne Lampe's background as a process engineer led her to focus on sustainable packaging.
Traceless Materials creates compostable materials from agricultural byproducts.
The materials developed by Traceless can replace traditional plastics in various applications.
Compostable materials can degrade within 12 weeks, even in natural conditions.
Recycling and composting are both essential for sustainable packaging solutions.
Consumer demand drives brands to seek more sustainable packaging options.
Traceless is partnering with major companies like Mondi to bring sustainable packaging to market.
The company is expanding rapidly, with plans for a new industrial plant.
Sustainability remains a priority for brands despite changing public perceptions.
Traceless aims to significantly reduce plastic waste with their innovative materials.


Sound bites

"This is the beauty of it."
"Everyone wants to do good."
"This is a real workplace now."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Sustainable Packaging
02:43 Anne Lampe's Journey and Traceless Materials
05:40 Innovative Material Development
08:44 Applications and Benefits of Traceless Materials
11:47 Consumer Impact on Sustainability
14:42 Future Plans and Company Growth
Keywords

sustainable packaging, Traceless Materials, Anne Lampe, circular economy, compostable materials, innovative packaging, consumer choices, environmental impact, packaging industry, biopolymers

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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

0:57

Welcome to the Sustainable Packaging Podcast with Cory Connors, presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors, and today I'm excited to welcome Anne Lamp. She is the CEO and co-founder of Traceless Materials. The coatings and materials they are working on could truly be a game changer and contribute to their goal of a waste-free world. How are you Anne? Hi, nice to be here. Thank you so much for being on. really appreciate it. I'm excited to talk about this kind of packaging because I think it's a big part of the future of packaging and well, the present to be honest. Can you tell us before we get into your business, tell us about you. How did you get into packaging? What's your background? process engineer by training. So I studied in Hamburg, Germany, and did also my PhD in this field. And also already in my bachelor's, I was like, my God, what am I doing here? Because I'm basically with my education fueling the system of take, make, waste. And I was about to stop my studies. But then I heard about circular economy, cradle to cradle, and that you actually need process engineers for that. So that motivated me to continue. m Yeah, and my PhD, I worked a lot with natural polymers, with biopolymers, biomaterials, and then I came to the process innovation that then led to the foundation of Traceless. Well, that's exciting. And I was looking at your background on LinkedIn and thought, wow, this is a lot of engineering. You don't normally see that for a chief executive officer and co-founder, but I think it's great background is this is what we need to improve sustainability and packaging is to identify the science and figure out the polymers and really analyze what we can make a difference to make this better. As the CEO and co-founder of Traceless, can you tell us about your focus? What does the company do for your clients? Yes, definitely. what we developed is a novel type of material, actually a novel type of material class we brought to market with it. And this is actually, to start with it, what the market needs at the moment, more alternatives, right? and the process itself, it's a process innovation, uses agricultural side products. For example, corn processing byproducts. And these we convert in our production into granulates that are fully natural. So we actually do nothing else than cooking coffee. So we mix it with coffee powder with a solvent and then we extract what we want and we separate it from what we don't want. This is basically the process, a little more tricks behind, to explain it in easy words. And the product that we get is purely natural, so natural polymer based. Without synthetic polymerization, without chemical modification. That's important because especially in EU definition, that is not defined as plastic. And it's also important because nature knows how to digest it because it's just natural. And in theory, you could also eat it. It's not so delicious. oh ha ha. this is the beauty of it. So well, now we have this product, but what can it do? And this is the second innovation that we created granulates that are thermoplastic. That means they melt when heated. So it can be applied on the same machinery as polyethylene, polypropylene, for example, in injection molding, film extrusion, paper coating, or also a T-SYS with our newest product. the products that are made out of it, for example, in packaging or in single-use items, they, if they end up in nature, they degrade without leaving a trace. And this is the innovation. That's incredible. I think a lot of people don't understand that that's possible yet. So I commend you and your team for working on that. Can you tell us a little bit about what kind of packaging materials would be made from your material? Sure. So we basically are a commodity producer. So we really sell the different types of granulates to our customers. Our customers are big packaging companies or injection molders and so on. And the type of packaging that can be done with it is, for example, paper coating or cardboard coating for either flexible packaging, cereal bars or sweets or... other types of uh dry food packaging that's important. So the ketchup bottle cannot be done with our material. I'm a scientist, so it's important for me to be very precise in everything. So the ketchup bottle cannot be done with our material because a long-term water contact is so far a limitation. But everything that's dry in packaging can be used, can be applied. Also, of course, in non-food applications, e-commerce or screw packaging, whatever. This is for the flexibles, paper coating, because the material is sealable, has a fat barrier, has certain other barriers. On the other hand, we also apply the material on cardboard, so for coffee cups, for example, because it's stable against hot water or hot coffee, and also for trays and so on. So this is the coating on cardboard. And the other market is single use. which is, for example, single-use cutlery, single-used cups and hangers and so on. So all these items that we actually don't use long, but they have a high littering potential. And the third and fourth product line, like the flexible films, they of course can be also applied in first packaging applications, especially non-food, and our adhesives can be applied on... cardboard packaging or flexible packaging. That's incredible. And it sounds like this coding or the, this line of material would make it so the packaging would be either recyclable or compostable. Is that, is that what I'm hearing you say? Exactly. So the material itself is compostable within 12 weeks maximum, even under natural conditions. So even if it ends up in nature or in the compost, it's gone after 12 weeks. On the other hand, if it's for example a paper or cardboard coating, then it can be recycled in the paper stream because we need to get the fiber back. That's a very valuable resource. But even if it's applied in applications that end up in incineration, then our LCA shows that it is a very good alternative to even recycling. So using our material once is better than recycling plastic from the life cycle assessment point of view because we use so few energy. So our energy demand is over 90 % less than the virgin plastic production that it's a material. that is applicable for all these nasty applications where we cannot close the cycle. We cannot do recycling. It ends up in nature. These are our target product applications. Excellent point. think recycling has gotten kind of a bad rap in several ways, but it's also a very positive thing. So we like to encourage it, but it makes sense that we focus on materials that can be composted or can be reused or can be recycled or just have it, like you said, have a low carbon footprint to start. I think that's a really important uh point of your message is, hey, look at this material. It works. It's already a benefit. And you haven't even had, you haven't even used it up yet. I think that's, it's kind of what I'm hearing you say. Exactly, exactly. I think in Europe the recycling rates are even a little higher than in the US, I guess. But yeah, it's clear that we need both. But for some applications, the cycle can be closed, for example, water bottles, where there's a closed-loop system. But yeah, there many applications where even in Europe, the cycle cannot be closed. If you look, if you think about the cereal bar, for example, right, cereal bar wrapper. It is so small that even we have perfect sorting and the multi-layer film is collected, but it's a multi-layer film so no one can recycle it. And then in Germany, for example, films are only recycled if they are larger than A4 size. So everything in the supermarket that consists of a film packaging that's smaller than A4 size will end up in incineration anyhow. So there's a lot to do for us. Right. Right. And what if it could be composted instead that that's just such a great, you know, there's no size limit to, or, or, or to uh composting, which is, think, a really important point. Like you're saying I have very impressed with Germany and your background of engineering. And I've often studied the reuse programs that you have for your beer and other kinds of. beverage programs and other things. It's really impressive to see. Why do you think so many uh packaging innovations come out of Germany? That's a good question. think we Germans want to stick to the rules. em And it's if you place different disposal tons in front of a German household, then the Germans, like to stick to the rules and sort the trash. That's maybe a stereotype, but it works. So the sorting really works well. I think what doesn't work well still is the product design because we also need to design the product in a way that it can be technically recycled. If we have multi-layer plastics, no one can recycle it to the same quality as the virtual material, right? So the product design is something that we really need to work on and this is exactly also where we help our customers. Yeah. It's an exciting time in packaging. I think a lot of changes are coming through. Can you tell us about a brand that you've partnered with recently or an exciting brand coming out using packaging that you've created or is that something you can share? Yeah, sure. I I think most well-known companies we are working with, who are also known in the US, are the big packaging companies. So a very close partnership we have is with Mondi. It's a uh European packaging company. I guess you also have them here in the US. So we have a close partnership on paper coating, extrusion coating, actually. granulates is delivered to them and they extrude it on papers to have flexible packaging applications and they substitute their polyethylene basically with our material. next year we want to bring first products to market together to supply them to the big brands. This is very exciting. I love to hear this kind of news about partnerships with big companies making a big impact because I think a lot of people don't understand that this is, it's here now and it's in the process of being transitioned into grocery stores. So consumers will be very excited to see that they can now compost that material or recycle it. and feel better about their decisions of what they're buying. So that's another point I'd like to make. Do you feel that a lot of sustainability and packaging is kind of up to the consumer with the decisions that they make? I feel yes, definitely. And we see this with the brands and their demands towards the converters and then they come to us. So the big brands, even though, I don't know, maybe in the news or in the public awareness, you might think at the moment, well, sustainability is kind of lower in priority than it was four years ago or three years ago, especially in the... in the US from the European perspective, it might seem like that, but even big US corporates and brand owners, they still keep to their targets, right? Because it's not because they are looking at how on vogue is sustainability at the moment, but in the end, it's still the same people. It's still the same people buying their products every day, getting annoyed that after coming back from the grocery store, plastic bin is full and this stays even though politics change and maybe the mood in politics change, but the feeling stays. I don't want to be part of the problem. I don't want to pollute. I don't want to now cause so much incineration or even landfill in the US of plastic waste. If you look at how much plastic waste you produce per week, this is insane. So these people, they want to do good, but they don't have the choice. in most cases because they need to buy what's in the supermarket. And I think this is also what brand owners know. I mean, big brand owners like Amazon want to become completely fossil free. This is nothing that kind of regulation forces them or sustainability agenda or whatever. But this is in the end what people would create. And I really believe in the good in everyone. And I believe that everyone wants to do good. And this is what we also want to provide with our solution. Ideally, people don't even recognize that this is now a good packaging. But if they do, they feel better about it. And this is also what the brand owners know. And this is why the demand is Yes. I could not agree with you more. I'm it's very upsetting to me when people speak negatively about sustainability and packaging, or they say recycling doesn't work or all of these things. They just have a negative attitude towards things. And I don't think that's helpful. I don't, mean, I understand I am a realist and I do think that, uh, you know, it is a daunting task in front of us, but I think you're right. Consumers care. They want to do the right thing. They want to buy materials that are. more sustainable that are recyclable, are compostable, that have a low carbon footprint. And I think they are showing that by encouraging companies to be more sustainable. know, like you said, Amazon has taken a lot of heat for their boxes that are too big or for their plastic pouches that are difficult to recycle. But now they're moving, like you said, fully away from that. those challenging materials. definitely. So it's a, think it's a good word. We're at a good spot in packaging. And I think we, this is a, you have the green light to uh innovate and provide more sustainable materials. Can you tell us anything else about your company or anything else exciting coming out that you want to tell us about? I mean, maybe what's also kind of special, we started five years ago, exactly in 11 days, it's our fifth birthday. And um we started with a bold mission, a waste-free world. And we knew that we wanted to have an impact with what we do. So the business model we chose from the very beginning, was quite unusual. We said, if we want to really create an impact that's measurable on the plastic pollution, then we need to scale fast and big. And that means that we need to build plants to produce this material. So what we did in the very beginning to raise money to build the first plant, and one and a half years after founding the company, our first plant was opened to produce the ground light. Already in... several kilograms scale to deliver it to first customers because I mean bringing the material on the machines of the plastic converters, don't do it in a second because that also takes time, right? And these collaborations, they take time. So this was our first step and we already knew after that second step comes the demonstration plant. So already by opening up the pilot plant, we were in the planning for the next one. And this we achieved at the first milestone uh two years ago. We closed a series A with 37 million euro um to build, thank you, to build the plant. I mean, it is super capex heavy, right? And this is why I say this is an unusual business model for startups, but in the end, it's the only way how to scale fast. And now we are two months. before, two to three months before opening up our demonstration plant. It's so exciting times at the moment because now everything of course comes together. We will produce the material in this demonstration plant in several thousand tons scale. We have a site that's the size of a football field and yeah, as a founder coming out of the lab with the lab process, I cannot believe where we are now. But still right now we are already planning for the next plant. Déjà vu. So we are planning for the big industrial plant and with that one we will have a five to six digit tons output per year. And then we are in the playing field of plastics and size of plastic production plants, right? But and this is the next step, I mean towards 28, 29, this shall open. Of course, everything comes again then financing, planning and so on. But When we are there, then we can really say we have a significant impact because then we will reduce plastic waste that potentially end up in the environment by half a truck per minute. That's our scale then. I love that you're thinking big. love that you're scaling up and I want to congratulate you and your team. What's the plan for the five year anniversary? Are you going to have a big event or tell us about that? We want to know. gonna have a big birthday party actually in two weeks and you cannot imagine like we moved last week from our small plant with a whole team to this plant here now or to this site. We are now a team of 100 people. And this is really a big step for a startup because we came with this step into a more professional working environment. Before it was like a garage with some desks here, some desks there, and people really needed to make compromises and be flexible and squeeze together. So now they're coming here and like, this is a real workplace. together with our birthday, we're making a big party in two weeks to celebrate all these big milestones together. That sounds exciting. Your team deserves a little space to move around and do this great work that they're doing. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you and your team? So definitely reach out either through our website um contact form or also find me on LinkedIn. Well, thank you again, Anne. This has been really exciting and interesting. I want to thank you for your wisdom and for the work that you're doing to push sustainable packaging forward. Thanks for having me.