PureNil0 product launch SmartSolve! Dissolvable Packaging

https://smartsolve.com/

An amazing innovation from SmartSolve! With CEO and co-founder Jonathan Jakubowski and Director of Flexible Packaging Dr. Vidhu Nagpal 

In this conversation, Jonathan Jakubowski discusses the intersection of faith and innovation within his company. He shares how their core values, particularly innovation, are grounded in scripture, specifically Jeremiah 33. Jakubowski recounts the journey of developing a new polymeric solution to address the environmental crisis of plastics, highlighting the role of prayer and vision in the creative process.


Takeaways

Incorporating scripture into core values fosters deeper meaning.
Innovation often arises from recognizing a pressing crisis.
Prayer can lead to creative breakthroughs in problem-solving.
The journey of innovation is often collaborative and iterative.
Faith can be a guiding force in business decisions.
Understanding the environmental impact is crucial for innovation.
Vision is essential for turning ideas into reality.
Core values can inspire and motivate teams.
Real-world problems require innovative solutions.
The excitement of innovation comes from seeing values in action.


Titles

Faith-Driven Innovation
The Power of Prayer in Problem-Solving


Sound bites

"He began to pray"
"An unveiling of a vision"
"What gets me up every day"


Chapters

00:00 Innovation Rooted in Faith
00:24 The Journey of Discovery in Innovation

Keywords

innovation, core values, scripture, polymer, environmental solutions, Purinil-Zero, creativity, vision, problem-solving, faith

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

0:11

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with president and co-founder, Jonathan Jakubowski from SmartSolve. Also their director of flexible packaging, Dr. Vidhu Nagpal. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Welcome to both of you. Thank you. Cory. Excited to be on. Yeah, really excited to be on with you. And I think what you have is a very innovative solution to sustainable packaging and a full line of products that we'll talk about today. But Jonathan, if you could start us off by telling us what is Smart Solve and what makes it so unique. Yeah, absolutely. And I know it's been a little while since we've last been on, but we continue to follow all of your podcasts and just wanted to commend you for all of the great content you put out there to help us learn more about new forms of sustainable packaging. So delighted to be on and thankful for all that you do. Smart Solve is a flexible packaging technology company. We started in 2016. So we're getting past now that toddler and getting into the preadolescence phase of our company. But from its very conception, Smart Solve's vision was to uh identify technologies using a novel foundation of water soluble paper. This water soluble paper based technology, although we do sell it in its most purest form, if you would, as a face stock form without adding any adhesives, that's a very small portion of the rest of our sales. Most of what we sell is going to be something that's coded onto that innovation. So imagine a sheet of paper and what you can do with that sheet of paper is limited until you add adhesives that allow us to create things like labels or pouches or other forms of sachets. So our vision was to create a whole line of innovation with that as the foundation, creating unique blends and adhesives and developing intellectual property along the way to ensure that what we were doing was truly novel and to bring to the market solutions that here for two hadn't been leveraged or considered. We're excited that we're a quickly growing company and adding teammates like Vidu to the team with his tremendous background and PhD in chemistry. That's just part of the story of success. We're still a small company, very hungry, very innovative and excited for the future. Thank you, sir. Very well said. And I've really enjoyed working with you and your team for a few years now, just learning about your products and finding out why are they so innovative and what kind of sustainable problems they can solve, which is really great. So Mr. Nagpal, or should I call you Dr. Nagpal? All right. Well said, Padhu. This material is translating into a flexible packaging innovation. Can you tell us what is pure NILO? Did I say that right? Or is it NIL0? Yes, PureNil. It's PureNil Zero. think the name is derived from the fact that the material is very, very 100 % nature-derived. So in that sense, it's pure. And it has no fossil fuel-based material attached to it. So it's a PureNil Zero, we call it. It's our latest packaging material that we launched. It is based on paper. It has a heat sealable layer to it that can, and the material can be formed into pouches, into sachets. So it's really a breakthrough material for flexible packaging and it is based on Smart Sol's patented technology. So in this, in the patent, what we've covered is that both the paper as well as the sealant is 100 % natural. is plastic free and it is food contact approved. So we believe it is the first of its kind where both the paper and the sealant is 100 % natural. We have not seen that before. So we are very excited about its launch. The novelty of Pyrundale material is that the packaging is completely water soluble and it is drain safe and it is flushable as well. And so it offers consumers an option to to either drain the package after it is used in the sink or flush it down the toilet instead of throwing it in a waste bin, which will be the case with the current flexible packaging technologies, which are mainly plastic-based. And as we know, plastic is not water-soluble. So, and because it's pure nail-less flushable and drain-safe, its innovation really lies... in its ability to be zero waste packaging technology. We emphasize on zero waste because it offers a unique and highly sustainable end of life solution where the consumers can directly participate in helping the environment and feel good about it. So we think it's win-win. It's win for the brand. It's win for the consumer. It's win for the environment. So we are very excited about its launch. That sounds incredible. I was at an event recently and they said the number one source of materials that goes into the ocean is from the Philippines. And most of that material is sachets, plastic sachets that are so small, they most likely couldn't be recycled anyways. But that community just knows that, or is just used to throwing them in the waterways. They don't have a waste collection system. Yeah, we also believe, Cory, that this could be a potential solution for managing littering. You mentioned Philippines, but in lot of other parts of the world as well, littering is a big problem where small plastic sashes are littered and they kind of get swept away by water or rain and they plug the drains. So. It is a huge problem in those parts of the world and we think we offer a very good solution to that problem. Yeah, I do too. Sounds amazing. Jonathan, how are your customers embracing this technology for their products? What kinds of things are they researching or testing in this new material? Yeah, Cory, you bring up a really interesting point with the plastic pollution crisis is what I would call it. I by the year 2050, there's gonna be more plastic in the ocean than fish. And we're seeing now increasing levels of plastic, microplastics and nanoplastics present in human endocrine systems, digestive systems, reproductive systems. I think it's an understated issue because the growth curve of plastics getting into our oceans and waterways is only ever increasing as the world grows, supply chains increase. So we are very aggressively pursuing this, not just from an ecologically advantageous perspective, but also from a human health perspective. What can we do to bring innovations to market that begin to reduce and move that needle in the right direction? And a lot of the use cases that I'll talk about do exactly that. For example, we're working in dish and laundry, where you bring in all natural solution. We have companies very interested in moving from any plastics derived content towards all natural solutions to eliminate or reduce plastics. We have agricultural opportunities where plastics are heavily proliferated in fertilizers or pesticides or herbicides. We see huge opportunities there. We also have opportunities in the food segment. were recently last year, we spent a few years getting ourselves ready for this, knowing this innovation was coming, becoming ISO 9001 certified and FSSC certified to be able to sell now direct food packaging content. So these are a few of the examples, but actually brought a little marketing piece here that talks about a whole slew of applications that can be used and our website and on our LinkedIn profile, we're going to talk about those verticals. And we'd love to talk with anybody that's interested in leveraging this innovation to join us in this battle against eliminating plastics. And if I may just. One quick story because it's so interesting to see how this innovation came alive. Cory, I think the last time we did a podcast, I had the core values behind me in one of the rooms. So we have six core values, character, drive, innovation, joy, humility, and growth. And I talked a little bit about those core values and I love to tell stories about those core values. Pure NIL-0 would not have come to life if it weren't for one of those core values coming to life. And that was the core value of innovation. In every one of our core values, we have a scripture passage from the Bible that undergirds what that core value means. And for the core value of innovation, it comes from Jeremiah 33, which says, Call to me and I will show you the great and unsearchable things you do not yet know. So when we envisioned the patent, we saw that the crisis that was coming with all of the and already here with all of the plastics in our oceans and waterways. And we didn't quite have the solution, but we knew what we were trying to build. So our former PhD chemist, who's now a professor at university, Freyo Gameta, was racking his brain trying to think through how he makes this polymeric combination possible. And he began to pray. And as he prayed, over the course of a couple of months, he started to have an unveiling of a vision of what this innovation could be and what kind of polymeric combination we would need to create to make Purinil-Zero a reality. So it's pretty cool seeing that core value come to life. our company based upon those values and seeing those stories come to life is really what gets me up every day and makes me really excited about what we're doing. Vine inspiration, wonderful, I love it. That's an exciting story. Vidu, let's talk about more materials, more things that could be used uh with this material. Could it be used in like ketchup and condiments and things like that? Jonathan had some great ideas too. Yeah, so Jonathan touched upon a few applications and verticals, and I can get into a little bit more details. So now since pure-nail material is water-soluble packaging technology, it is suitable for dry products only. But it has natural fit in variety of verticals. Wherever your creative mind takes you, uh you can think about applications. And some of the applications that are that we are exploring with our customers and some which are already in the market are very obvious. So the first one I can think of is a household cleaning powders where you have the laundry detergents and dishwasher detergent which are packaged in a sachet. And these sachets are completely water soluble. So you just toss it in and there you go. The other ones are personal cleaning items such as soap covers or bath bombs. Some of our industrial partners are actually looking at it to use as an additive in septic tanks where they actually package enzymes in a sachet and all they have to do is throw the enzyme sachet in a septic tank and then you're done. Similarly, some other examples are concrete additives in construction business. John mentioned agricultural products, which we are very excited about that vertical. our consumers are using soil enrichment powders that are either in a sachet where the sachet is either directly thrown uh on the soil and over time and with moisture and rain, it just dissolves and enriches the soil. So that's one application. The other one is you can actually even put it in your uh tank of water which you use to water the plants. So that's another application that is being explored. Feminine care is another one where it is currently being used as cover apps for tampons. John mentioned about our food contact approval. We are actually exploring right now with a candy company as a wrapper, candy wrapper, because as you know, candies do create a lot of litter, the wrappers do. Right. And lastly, the healthcare applications are also uh very much in the marketplace where the coagulants are encapsulated or packaged in the sachet and they are used to solidify the medical waste. So you can see that in these applications, packaging is really designed as a single use application. And where the industrial applications where chemicals are used, you know, and they have to be used in correct dosage and these are harsh chemicals. So when they are pre-packaged in sachet, you're dosing it correctly. It is pre-dosed from the company and you also avoid touching. So I think in that sense, we are promoting not just innovation in the marketplace, but also safety and convenience for the consumer. So, and then the last but not the least, some of our customers are also exploring this to be used as a plastic bag, where you can actually have smaller items packaged as a dust cover, so to speak. The idea there is that by doing so, they are reducing their dependence on plastic. So they are trying to meet their sustainability goals in plastic reduction. which I think is a very creative way of using our material as well. So, variety of ways to use it. We just have to be creative about it. Come talk to us and uh we'll figure out a way. Love that mindset. That's exactly what we need right now in sustainability of packaging is, Hey, let's try this together. Let's work on it. Let's figure it out as a team, as a group, and even as competitors in some cases. So that's exciting to see. Jonathan EPR has become a huge topic in the world of uh packaging, extended producer responsibility. How will this affect those numbers for companies? Thank Well, one limitation I should note as we talk about applications is we don't have moisture barrier. There's no real strong MVTR, so it's not going to do well with anything that requires protection from moisture. So just to note on the limitations of what Pure No-Zero offers, that is a whole new line of technology we're developing that will begin to add moisture barrier. We do have some oxygen barrier, so there are limited uses for this. the answer to how you limit or reduce the potential of EPR fees, I think requires an understanding on what exactly EPR is mandating and what are the regulations around it. And there are some simple basic recommendations that you could go to any conference or listen to Cory Conner's podcast for a number of uh experts that talk about these things. It reminds me of our core value of humility. Smart Solve is not going to solve all of these problems. We are just one, honestly, one drop in the bucket. We're one player. of many who need to come forward with solutions that either enhance recyclability, reduce multilayer structures, lightweight the packaging, be more effective at finding ways to become efficient with how you ship and what you ship. So we know we're one player and we're bringing your novel solution to the table, but truly it takes a much more comprehensive set of solutions that aren't just packaging focused. It includes how much packaging you're using, the kinds of packaging you're using. and partners that can give you an idea on ways that they're strategically approaching those questions. Yeah, that's it. And, uh, working hard to, to find alternatives that are less costly like this. This is really a smart way to do things. but do what's the future of compostable packaging? Is this material compostable? do you think that it'll be available more for consumers and for businesses? Yeah, I'm glad you asked that question. Actually, this material checks a lot of sustainability boxes. We talked about its water solubility and drain safe and flushability, but this material also is compostable. It is biodegradable and it is recyclable. So whatever sustainability lever the brand is looking for, I think we check that box. But having said that, just wanted to be... wanted to put it out there for the listeners. You know, the most packaging material that we see in plastics today, which is PET, which are used in beverage bottles or HDPE plastic cans, these are not compostable materials. These are all fossil fuel derived plastics that just stay there forever. But, you know, with the advances in polymer chemistry, uh you know, scientists and industry has been able to derive polymers from natural resources, PLA is one good example of that. And these materials are compostable. However, they are compostable only if they end up in the landfill, I'm sorry, in the industrial compost facility, because they require a specific temperature and moisture and all that. So it's not like... they will naturally decompose or biodegrade. And our material does that. But uh compostability, I think your question, whether this is going to take off or not, I think it is moving very slowly. And I don't think it has moved to the point where it is really moving the needle in terms of alleviating the overflow of plastic waste in landfills. And then the reason are, you know, a couple of reasons for that I can think of right off the bat. One is that, like I said, these materials, the compost material, plastic based on compost materials have to be separated at more or a material recovery facility. And especially in flexible packaging, those technologies don't exist. So they usually end up in landfill anyway, and where they just, you know, just are there. because they're not going to go through the compost degradation. But in our case, our material, since it is naturally biodegradable, even if it ends up in landfill, it does that. So it will naturally biodegrade. So I think we offer a lot of benefits for what is called compostable plastics, uh where they are required to be in a... for industrial facility and we can biodegrade in nature. It's exciting to see the future of that. agree. And to be able to claim, compostable is very good for your, your brand and for your product. And we'll help your customers a lot, think in the future. Jonathan, do you want to tell us about any success stories that smart solve has had any customers that are just really doing a great job with, with this kind of material or any of your other products? Yeah, so our new tagline for PureNode Zero is zero waste, zero hassle, endless possibilities. What's been surprising about the adventure when we launched SmartSolve was the kinds of opportunities that we would experience in every sector imaginable. Truly endless possibilities have come about as companies and customers look for new innovations to, whether it's solve utilitarian issues, like they need to have a label that dissolves in the dishwasher so that there's not a transference of bacteria residue that can create foodborne illnesses, or an application where they need to create protection for the hands of employees around a dry chemical, or to create separation from that employee who tosses that packet into something that's nasty on the ground. We want to create distance, but you need that to dissolve when you drop the cleaning solution into the formula. or in the newer applications, the dish tabs and the laundry pod opportunities, the feminine hygiene care with. We mentioned a whole bunch of these opportunities, so I don't wanna be redundant. I would just say that there are two primary ways that companies engage us. One is on the utilitarian side where they wanna have a temporary barrier, a temporary solution that when water or liquid hits it, they need it to vanish away. And then the other side is uh entities that are looking for more sustainable solutions. That's to enhance their brand image, to really pursue how they can reduce EPR or leverage up a vision for reducing micro and nanoplastics in the environment. Those two are primary reasons why most of the companies come to us. In many cases, those are actually mixed. They kind of come together. One of the things that most excites us, and we recognize this, that we're not the hero of the story. The hero of the story is our customer, and it's our job to help them accomplish what their vision looks like, whatever that may be. So there's been a few cases where we've had several of our customers go viral with millions of views on TikTok or Instagram because they used our innovation and demonstrated the sustainability benefits, and that helped create a wonderful launch with a beautiful ROI. that helped justify the increased costs that they were paying for these very premium materials. So truly that tagline of endless possibilities has come alive in these nine years that we've existed and we're excited to see more. Yeah, well said. Thank you, sir. But do anything else you want to add? Any other topics you want to cover? No, think John summarized it very well. I think we offer a very unique packaging technology in the marketplace that the industry has not seen ever. And we think that our solution would enable them to reset their packaging. We need for them to think about packaging in a different way, not in a traditional sense. And the benefits that we bring can be leveraged in a highly, highly sustainable manner, which also not only helps the environment, but also engages the consumer, which I know brands are always looking for ways to engage the consumer. So in that sense, I think we are very much looking forward to engaging with companies and brands who are looking for that uh new mindset in packaging. and especially when it comes to helping the environment. Exactly. Yeah, this hasn't been done before. it's like, what a great opportunity. Jonathan, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you and the team there at Smart Solve? Sure, all the ways imaginable that are common to companies these days. LinkedIn is probably one of the platforms that we leverage the most. We'll have content being turned out of there with some really exciting videos where we see customers in the market using these live blogs that get into the depth of the background of the innovation and the science behind the innovation. In fact, our own video here, had uh wrote an article on micro and nanoplastics that was tremendously referenced. So we'll have a bunch of content that you can find through LinkedIn. Our website is smartsolve.com. And if you reach out to any of us, we'd love to connect with you. Our team is very humble and very hungry. We think that we have an innovation that can help and we'd love to be with you on that journey of solving some of the problems that you haven't yet been able to solve. Great. Thank you, Vadhu. Thank you, Jonathan. Really appreciate your wisdom today. Thank you, Cory. thank you, Cory. Thanks for having us.