Ep. 171 - Turning Plants into Plastic-Free Packaging: The Xampla Story
SHOW NOTES
Plastic pollution is one of the defining environmental challenges of our time—microplastics are now found in our oceans, our soil, our drinking water, and even in our bloodstreams. But what if we could make high-performance materials that look, feel, and function like plastic—without being plastic at all?
Enter Xampla.
Born out of the University of Cambridge, Xampla is a materials science innovation company that’s developed a new class of plastic-free, fully biodegradable materials that offer a drop-in replacement for the most polluting types of plastic. Their flagship line, known as Morro™, is made from natural plant proteins like those found in peas, potatoes, sunflowers and many other sources. It's already launched in the market with global brands for food service packaging, and it’s able to eliminate the most polluting plastics in a whole range of products from barrier coatings for paper, microcapsules in personal and homecare products, and soluble films for homecare and edible applications.
In this episode, I’m joined by Xampla’s CEO, Alexandra French—a veteran of the chemical and materials industries with more than 25 years of global leadership experience. Since taking the reins in 2023, Alexandra has been leading Xampla through its next chapter: moving from a world-changing lab discovery to a commercially scalable solution.
We’ll talk about how Xampla’s technology works, the environmental promise it holds, and how Alexandra is navigating the complex journey of building a startup at the intersection of science, manufacturing, and sustainability. We’ll also explore the company’s recent commercialization and the licensing business model it’s pursuing.
DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE
Our past episodes with Footprint (biodegradable plastics), Lanzatech (gas fermentation to create materials), Bolt Threads (fermentation-derived spider silk), and NotPla (edible packaging).
Alexandra previously worked for chemicals giant Johnson Matthey.
Alexandra recommends reading The Coaching Habit.
The Control Union has a plastic-free certification.
MORE ABOUT Alexandra French
Alexandra French has a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. She has extensive global leadership experience from 25 years at Johnson Matthey and as CEO of an AIM listed business, as well as being an accredited coach. She has a proven track record of creating and leading high performance teams and is leading Xampla in delivering its growth strategy and as it launches Morro materials into the market at scale.
TRANSCRIPT
Paul Shapiro: Welcome friend to episode 171 of the Business for Good podcast. If you've been listening to this show for some time, you probably already know that virtually none of the plastic that we use, even if you throw it in the recycling bin, is ever going to be recycled. In short, making new plastic is just cheaper than recycling used plastic.
Plastic pollution is one of the defining environmental challenges of our time. Microplastics are now found in our oceans, our soil, our drinking water, even in our bloodstreams. What if we could make high performance materials that look fuel and function like plastic without being plastic at all? Enter Zla.
Born outta the University of Cambridge. Zla is a material science innovation company that's still up a new class of plastic free, fully biodegradable materials that offer a drop in replacement for the most polluting types of plastic. They're flagship line, which is known as Morro. That's M-O-R-R-O. Is made from natural plant proteins like those found in peas, potatoes, sunflowers, and many other sources.
It's already launched in the market with global brands for food service packaging, and it's able to eliminate, as I said, some of the most polluting plastics in a whole range of products, from barrier coatings for paper, microcaps, and personal and home care products, and soluble films for home care and edible applications.
In this episode, I'm joined by Zappala's, CEO, Alexandra French, a veteran. Of the chemical and materials industries with more than 25 years of global leadership experience. Since taking the reins of the company in 2023, Alexandra has been leading Zla through its next chapter, moving from a world changing lab discovery to a commercially scalable solution.
We talk about how Zara's technology works, the environmental promise it holds, and how Alexandra's navigating the complex journey of building a startup at the intersection of science, manufacturing, and sustainability. We also explore the company's recent commercialization and the licensing business model.
It is pursuing. I'll let Alexandra tell you the rest. Let's dive in.
Alexandra, welcome to the Business for Good Podcast.
Alexandra French: Great to meet you, Paul. Thanks for having me on the, on the podcast.
Paul Shapiro: Oh, it's such a pleasure to be talking with you. Let me get straight into it. So. You are making an alternative to plastic. And you know, there are other companies that are doing this, but they're doing it with fermentation.
So you have companies like Lantech and others who are doing like a gas fermentation where they're creating cool materials. But you guys aren't using fermentation, right? You're doing more chemistry and, and physics, if my understanding is correct. So tell me, what is the method that you guys are using to create something that is like plastic but not actually made from these fossil fuels?
Alexandra French: So that's absolutely right. What we are doing, we're replacing some of the most polluting plastics, single use plastics. Often quite hidden plastics, and normally those plastics that you can't recycle with a a. Technology using plant protein. So we are using proteins from plants and what we are doing, it's, it's really exploiting the way that proteins naturally self-assemble in nature.
And so these sort of protein structures, we are unfolding them and refolding them in again, again in such a way that gives the material. Fantastic properties, things like strength, flexibility, barrier properties that it enables it to be able to replace plastics in lots of different applications.
But we are doing that sort of molecular arra rearrangement without any chemical modification whatsoever. And that bit's really important because without any chemical modification. It means that the resulting material is truly not a plastic, completely biodegradable in whatever environment it finds itself in.
So it's given the performance it needs to replace plastic, but just with none of the end of life biodegradation issues.
Paul Shapiro: I, I wanna get into that, but let me just ask you more about the process here. So when you're saying you're, there is no chemical modification, I'm imagining you're doing things like adding heat or pressure or pH changes or like what's the actual process that you're taking a pea protein and converting it into something that can act like a plastic in a single use plastic bag.
Alexandra French: So exactly that, that kind of thing. Things that you sort of mixing and I, I can't tell you too much because it's it's quite highly patented process. A lot of IP there. Well let, well,
Paul Shapiro: let me ask you, if I were to go read your patents, which I presume are publicly available, what would they say that you're doing?
Alexandra French: Well, it was, it, it's I I would describe it as sort of mixing shearing, like you talk about sort of temperature pH I think a good way of describing it to your listeners, think about it as like cooking an egg. You've got the egg white and actually an egg white, it's quite gelatinous. It's generally quite sort of clear.
If you cook that egg white, it changes. Quite considerably. It then becomes a different color, it becomes a different sort of texture and you've done absolutely nothing to that egg white, which is sort of protein. So, you know, that's a way we sometimes like to describe it. So yeah, nothing chemical there.
And hence when it breaks down, it's just breaking down back to those starting plant materials that it came from.
Paul Shapiro: Interesting. Yeah. I'll tell you a funny story. I, I have no idea how to cook eggs. And I have a neighbor who has some pet chickens and they gave my wife and me some eggs. Not knowing that we weren't gonna eat them ourselves, but we figured our dog would eat them.
And so I was like, how do you even cook an egg? I don't know. And so I hard boiled them. I looked it up on Chacha bt to see like how you hard boil them. And it is really remarkable, like how an egg starts and then after 10 mos of boiling instead of liquid, it's now totally solid. I, I was, you know, it's pretty incredible chemistry that's going on in there.
Actually, I was pretty surprised by it, but I, I knew that, I knew what Harbo and the egg was. I just didn't know how long you were supposed to do it or anything like that, and,
Alexandra French: and that, so, I mean, we are really, we stay really true to that. So. No chemical modification and to make sure that our materials are truly, truly plastic free.
Yeah. It's, it's, it would be much easier to go and chemically modify because you can take natural plant materials, natural, natural polymers and if you were to chemically modify them, it's. Far easier to then get the sorts of properties you are looking for to replace plastics. But that's what I think really makes our technology unique is, you know, we're very true to that.
We will not compromise on that chemical modification element because once you do that. You're essentially turning your material back into a plastic. 'cause you could take a, a plant chemically modify those plant materials and it wouldn't be it would then be considered a, a plastic, certainly under things like the single use plastics directive.
The definitions we have in UK Europe for that is that chemical modification piece that's really key.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. So you're talking about it, not biodegrading. Before we get into that, let's talk about what the plastics are. 'cause most people are plastic is plastic, but of course there's lots of different types of plastics, right?
Different types of plastics are used, let's say, for making a single use plastic bag versus the plastic that's in your computer versus the plastic that's in I don't know, let's say like your iPhone or whatever, but what type of plastics. For the materials that you're making good for, you're saying it's the dirtiest plastics.
I don't know that I know which plastics are so-called dirtier than others. So what are the dirtiest ones that you're trying to replace?
Alexandra French: So the sorts of plastics that we are replacing are you know, types of application, lots of packaging applications. So if you think about your takeaway food boxes, your, your takeaway coffee cups, those are.
Cardboard, you know, paper-based packaging, but that are lined with plastic. So things like sort of polyethylene acrylic dispersions, poly. So this will be
Paul Shapiro: like, like when, when I buy a box of pasta and it has that little window that shows me what the pasta looks like through the cardboard box. Is that film, that's the type of plastic you're talking about?
Alexandra French: So at the moment we are really focused on coatings onto paper and board. So these are then things like your takeaway, food boxes, your coffee cups. So what is sort of nominally or, or people might think of as a, a cardboard paste based packaging and they think, great. I've got, you know, my, my takeaway, my.
My pizza, my burger. What, what, whatever is, is in a, in a cardboard box, this must be great. But actually a lot of sort of consumers aren't aware that that cardboard is lined with plastic and that plastic is then preventing that box or that cardboard from either biodegrading being able to be composted or being recycled.
So that's kind of double whammy because you then can't recycle or, or, or compost the cardboard part of the packaging either. So it's those types of applications typically pack packaging. We also have applications that are, film based like, like you were describing, but the film technology that we've developed, we've specifically developed our films to be soluble and to replace poly vinyl alcohol in applications like your dishwasher tablets, your laundry pods.
So if your listeners can picture, you know, dishwasher tablets, they're typically wrapped in a plastic film. You put the whole thing or your laundry pod, you put the whole thing in your dishwasher, in your washing machine and that plastic. Seemingly disappears to release the, the dishwasher tablet or the, the laundry detergent.
But, but that, that PVOH is isn't disappearing. So we've got a film that is, is soluble again, completely made from plants, no chemical modification to replace those types of plastics. And we've also got a technology to replace very, very hidden microplastics. So in most of laundry detergents.
Fabric conditioners or shampoos, shower gels, those sort of personal home care products, the fragrance in those products is encapsulated in plastic to give a, a really nice sort of rubbing release. Those little plastic micro capsules of a fragrance will, will hang on your clothes all day long, hang on your skin and, and sort of burst as you, you and as you sort of.
Release the fragrance all day. And, and hence, you know, all of us are sort of shedding these microplastics they're getting washed out into, into the wastewater. So those are the, some of the types of really hidden plastics and plastics that you can't recycle, that our technology is replacing.
Paul Shapiro: Cool. Okay.
So why, if you're saying, Alexandra, that this product that you're making, which you call Morro, right, so M-O-R-R-O, which is a play on the word tomorrow, like you're doing this for tomorrow. So if the morro, which is again, your material will biodegrade. Why is it not going to biodegrade while it's still in use?
Right? Like if you think about like if you buy something that is lined with plastic and you want it lined with plastic for a specific purpose, right? To prevent the cardboard or paper from becoming soiled, why is it going to biodegraded later when you want it to biodegrade but not biodegrade while you're still using it?
Alexandra French: So yeah, and you mentioned that we, our materials are called Morrow. So yes, these are our materials of tomorrow replacing plastic of, of the past. And it's really you know, we've designed the technology to perform how it needs to perform in these applications. So whilst so if you imagine our, our Morrow coating, which is applied onto to paper and board for things like your takeaway box linings.
You need that takeaway box lining to give you good grease barrier, good moisture barrier, so that when you put your, your takeaway food in there, it's not going to to leak through onto your hands, onto your, onto your clothing. But, but eagerly it's got to hold that hold that food, hold that liquid for, for a period of time.
And so that the coating, when it's laid out, down onto the paper and board and, and dried is, is very stable, gives those good barrier properties. But then when it's then in you know, to, to break down, those proteins are broken down by, by enzymes like sort of enzymes in, in this. Soil in nature, you know, how, how how proteins are, are sort of typically broken down like proteases, which are sort break, break down these proteins back to their, back to their starting materials.
And I think the important thing is like nobody needs their takeaway box to last. 300 years, which, you know, plastic lasts hundreds of years. That takeaway box might take you 20, 30 minutes to eat your takeaway. You might put it in the fridge for the next day. So, you know, you're talking a few days, but you do not need your takeaway boxes and your takeaway cups to last, right.
You know, hundreds of years. So it's, it's kind of really about changing that mindset as well.
Paul Shapiro: So my accurate in saying more is really more for, let's say plastics that are like single use plastics, but not necessarily for something that you would want in a car that is going to last for decades, presumably.
Alexandra French: Yeah. And those are the types of applications we've, we've targeted those, those single use applications. So, you know, our technology, where we are now as a business, we are not looking to replace these rigid plastics with it's very, very long shelf lights that, that you are looking to, that you need to last sort of longer periods of time.
It's the single use that frankly you're using for hours, days, but not much more than that.
Paul Shapiro: Got it. Okay. You talk about plastic lasting for centuries, do we know how long it will last? I mean, plastic was invented less than a century ago, right? So like, do we, I mean, my understanding is that all of the plastic that has ever been created, if it hasn't been incinerated, it still exists, right?
It's still out there. It has not biodegraded yet. So do we actually know how long plastics take to degrade?
Alexandra French: I am not an expert in terms of how long sort of plastics we, you and, and, and those sorts of studies. So I, I don't wanna speak on, on something I am, I'm not, not an expert on, but like, you
Paul Shapiro: know.
It doesn't stop me from doing it, I'll tell you that. But I'll, I, I appreciate that.
Alexandra French: I, I, I, you big, big, sort of, very British, we want to be very, you know, kind of make sure we got all our facts right and that kind of thing. Yeah. Right. But, but you, you're, you're right. You know, plastics that they're often incinerated.
So, you know, actually most of the plastics, I mean only nine. Cent of plastic ever produced is, is recycled. So very little of it is plastic. Very little of it is is, is recycled. Most of it goes to landfill. Most of it gets incinerated. And yeah, there's you know, with over sort of 400 millions of tons of, of plastic waste generated every year.
Just a, a growing and growing problem and it, it, it's quite scary. Some one, one of the sort of stats we sort of sometimes talk about is, you know, by 2050 it's predicted that there'll be more plastic in our oceans than fish, which is really quite a scary prospect.
Paul Shapiro: Yes. Yeah. That is scary. So let me ask you about the history of the company, Alexandra, because you, you are the CEO, but you're not the founder. So the, the company has raised nearly 20 million US dollars in its history. And the name Zla is, I presume the PLA is part of it. Is that like PLA, like polylactic acid or like plastic?
Is that where the, where the plug is coming from?
Alexandra French: So well, let me tell you a little bit about the history then. So starting with the, with the name. So the, our our CTO co-founder didn't have a huge amount of time to come up with the company name. He was sitting in, in the pub with our other co-founder who's a professor at, at the university, and they were thinking about the, the.
The pluck bit. You, you, you're right, sort of plastic replacement plants. So this is where the, the pluck came, came from. And then we spun outta the University of Cambridge and the technology was de developed in, in Cambridge. So they were thinking Cam, and then they were like, look, any cool company has an X in the name, so let's just make this rather than Cam, it's an exam.
Zr and it was literally as, as quick as that when they were then thinking of the name for incorporating the company. So yeah, it's like that, that's where that came about.
Paul Shapiro: That's cool. Any, any cool company has an X in the name. It's kind of like, you know, we're a space company, what should be called SpaceX, you know, it's like Exactly.
Yeah. If, if, if that's X it must be cool. Alright, well yeah, that's a pretty interesting idea. So when you say the university, I presume this is the University of Cambridge where this technology was spun out of.
Alexandra French: Yep. And our CTO co-founder, he was postdocing at the university. He's a, you know, an absolutely fantastic protein scientist.
And he was looking, you know, alongside I say the professor Thomas Knowles, who's, really renowned professor at the university. They were looking at how spiders make their silk and how, you know, silk is one of the strongest materials in nature. It's five times stronger than steel by weight. It doesn't dissolve when it gets like.
Pounded by rainstorms. It's just absolutely fantastic materials. They were looking at how these, you know, silk molecules are arranged in nature. And then Mark Mark Rodriguez Garcia, our CTO, was looking at silkworms and he was extracting silk from silkworms. And he told me This is absolutely not a fun thing to do.
And he was like, you know. We are not gonna carry on looking at, at, at silk protein. So they thought, well, how can we apply this learning into plant proteins? So that's essentially how it, it came about by looking at the, the molecular arrangement in, in silk, and then transferring that into plant protein.
And Mark actually told me recently a little story, which, which made me smile. He. The kind of breakthrough moment at the, the university. He was doing a, a, an experiment quite late into an evening. He s spillt his experiments. He spilled this material that he'd made over his lab bench. Couldn't really be bothered to clear it up, thought I'll just do it in the morning, went home, came back the next day and found that this.
Film had formed, kind of like peeled it off the, the branch and went running into, to Thomas the professional say, look at this. And that was really the kind of breakthrough moment to say, actually, look, you know, protein without any chemical modification can form these materials. That, that, that had these sorts of properties.
So that's how it all started. And then he spun out. It sounds kind of oh, sorry.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah, it sounds a little bit similar to the story of I like Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, right? He like found that on the orange peels, like this mold was growing. You know, so much, so much of scientific breakthrough relates to just happenstance and accidents as opposed to a deliberate scientific method with a hypothesis and a test.
Alexandra French: Yeah. And then he spun out the company in 2018. We had our first employee start in the early 2020. So really the last five years we've, we've grown from literally one or two employees in a little, little lab to, we are 40 people now in the, in the company and just launched product into market, which is really exciting 'cause it's just.
Great to be able to have this technology actually in the hands of, kind of like end consumers being able to replace some of this plastic in the real world.
Paul Shapiro: That's really great. Congratulations. Yeah. So I, I know that you've partnered with certain companies, I believe I'm pronouncing 'em correctly, like Britvic and gto.
What are they using it for? Are they doing coffee cups? Are they doing pizza boxes? Like what is Moro actually in the world doing right now?
Alexandra French: So we have launched Morro coating. So that is our coating on paperboard PA paper on board for food service takeaway. So that's the first launch application.
I'll come back to Britvic and, and Gusto 'cause they're actually our Morro film and our Morro micro cap. Morrow Encapsulation technologies. But in terms of the film, so we've launched that with a, a company called Just Eat takeaway. So listeners across Europe, I think Will, will have heard of Just Eat in the us they're like I think you've got companies like DoorDash, so your home delivery food.
Takeaway delivery type company where your, your food is from delivered from a restaurant to your home in a, in a takeaway box. So we've partnered with a big global paper packaging company called Hutu Mackey. They're, they're sort of one of the, the sort of biggest in food service packaging.
Who in conjunction with the N brand just eat, have, have used Morrow coating. And launch that for, for takeaway boxes in into market. There's another player in the, in the chain who's our license partner. Our first license license partner, two m group of companies. And, and maybe we'll pick back. Up on that in a, in a second.
'cause that's all about how we've gone to market and how we've scaled quickly and how we can really make this happen through a sort of licensing business model. But yeah, so that's what we've launched with our, our Morrow coating Gusto, the company that you mentioned this is a. Home delivery, food delivery.
HelloFresh, I think is a company maybe in the, the, the states that listens, may be familiar with where you get a meal box delivered to your home, all the ingredients you need to, to cook your meal at, at home. And Gusto worked with us with our Moro films, so. I talked about the films being used to replace polyvinyl alcohol, to to wrap dishwasher, tablets, that kind of thing.
But because it's just made from plants, it's completely edible. So with Gusto, we used our film to wrap their stock cubes. And you can drop the entire stock cube, wrapping an all into your into your food, into your cattle, into your, your stock pot. And that more of film then just dissolves into your, into your food.
So it's kind of eliminating the, the packaging altogether. Mm-hmm. And we did a, a consumer trial with, with Gusto out with that stock cube, which got really great feedback. And that's another application we are working with within brands on the Britvic company that you, you mentioned. So Britvic is a, a UK brand.
It's actually now just been bought by Carlsberg. They make a lot of soft drinks and, and beverages. One of the brands that they do is a juice concentrate brand called Robinson's. It's like a juice concentrate that you then dilute with. With water. And one of the things, you know, that, that they were looking for was being able to fortify and kind of enhance the nutritional properties of their, their drinks.
Vitamin D deficiency is a big thing that a lot of food and beverage companies are really bothered about. They're looking to see how can they fortify food and beverages with vitamin D. And we can, again, because we talked about that encapsulation technology for encapsulating fragrance to eliminate microplastics, but because it's completely plastic free.
Again, we can put it in edible applications, so we can encapsulate things like vitamin D, other vitamins, and then this encapsulated vitamin can go into food and beverages. And that encapsulation technology with our plant protein gives those vitamins stability in the end product. So it gives it sort of stability shelf life.
So for UV degradation from the conditions in the, the juice itself to mean that. When you put that vitamin D in the drink, for example, 12 months later, you're still gonna have the vitamin D there. Currently, if you were just to put vitamin D unencapsulated in these products, it degrades very quickly and chances are it's just not gonna be there when it actually reaches the consumer and the.
Other thing I was gonna say, which is quite exciting. Just recently done quite a lot of study with an external institute around how the encapsulation gives that vitamins, gives, actually gives enteric release so it protects the vitamins and other nutrients when they're in the stomach. And actually then, and then they release when they're in the intestine, which is where you want them to release, and then you get the nutritional benefits as as well.
So this is kind of, sort of aside from the, it's an additional benefit aside from plastic replacement where a lot of our applications are plastic replacement. This is a slightly different product application, but equally exciting.
Paul Shapiro: How are you producing all of this, Alexandra? So, you know, you're, you're saying you alluded to the fact that you might wanna do a licensing model rather than manufacturing and selling the Morrow yourself.
But my guess is that with, you know, nearly $20 million in funding, that's not enough to build a big factory. And so you probably have like a, a pilot plant or a demonstration scale plant. Is that accurate? Is that you're producing this yourself or using a co-manufacturer?
Alexandra French: So we are using a licensing business model.
You're absolutely right. We have got a pilot plant, so very near our labs and offices in, in Cambridge. We've got a pilot plant facility and this is basically a small scale facility that exactly mimics. The production process of our license partners. So we have decided to go for a licensing business model because for, for a number of reasons really we, it's really important to be able to scale a technology.
There's sort of loads of great ideas out there and. Fabulous entrepreneurs doing really great things. But actually, if you can't get your idea into market you know, it's, you need to be able to make it cost effective. You wanna get it out there quickly. You need to be able to make it at scale. And for us, with our coatings, we're talking like tons of, of, of coating material, thousands of tons of coating material a year.
So. What we do is we license the technology, so that's licensing our really comprehensive patent portfolio, the know-how sort of expertise, training, all of that to, people, companies who are already really experienced in manufacturing. And they, they then manufacture the, the coating material at scale and they will then sell it into the paper packaging industry.
So the, the various players in the, the paper packaging industry. And one of the reasons we decided to do this is there is one, as you said. 20 $20 million would not build us manufacturing plants all around the world, which is essentially what we need, right? Mm-hmm. But there are lots of chemical companies out there already making coatings for the paper packaging industry and looking for green alternatives to bring into their portfolio.
So this is perfect for them. They have the infrastructure, they have the you know, probably most of the equipment they need, and more importantly, they have the manufacturing expertise. And I think people underestimate, you know, how important their expertise is and actually how hard it is to bring into a small company where you've only got a few people and you need to, you know, it takes a long time to build up that expertise.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So that, that brings us to a very important point. I mentioned that you're not the founder of the company. In fact, prior to this, you were working at one of the larger chemical companies, right? So you were working, excuse me you were working at Johnson Matthew, which is a British, multinational chemical company before you came to a small startup.
So having seen both sides of the coin, right, being at a, a large chemical company and now being at a small chemical startup which do you like better? You like the security of being at the big company. I presume you're gonna say you like current better, because obviously that's what you're doing. But what's the difference for you whether you're working at the large company with the security of being in a battleship or being at the, the helm of a small swift boat, like a example?
Alexandra French: And, and that's a really, a really interesting question Paul, and a lot of people sort of often ask that. It's like, what you, why have you gone from big corporate to, to small startup? And what made you sort of make that, that change? See, I spent 25 years at Johnson Mathie. I loved it there. I'm a, a scientist.
I did my natural science degree at Cambridge sort of many years back. And I did start in a, a science role. But quite early on in Johnson, Matthew, I moved more into commercial roles. Led global sales and marketing teams and, and then more sort of general business leadership. And I worked in all sorts of different businesses a across Johnson, Matthew.
But my last role there was running the lithium and phosphate battery material business. Actually I, I lived out in Canada for a couple of years. I lived, lived in Montreal and that business was. It was very standalone. It was a business that Johnson Matthew had acquired. It was about 50 people. And we operated really quite independently, although being part of a, a large corporate, and I really loved that environment.
I really loved being able to sort of build a team and, and have, you know, sort of shaped this sort of really high performing team. Actually knowing everybody in the company, being able to be very agile, get things moving quite quickly. And I think it was. At that point in my career, I thought, this is the type of environment, the type of business I really want to be in.
So. Fast forward a a few years when I was then thinking about my next role. This was one of the things that sort of shaped my decision and, and, and why I why I joined Sampler. There were kind of few other, few other key reasons as well, but I'd got a taster of what that sort of smaller business looked like.
So mm-hmm. Yeah, that's, that's how I ended up. And I think from that Johnson Matthew experience, it's, and, and sort of with quite a lot of manufacturing sort of. Background and experience at Johnson Matic. It really kind of gave me that knowledge that it's, it's much, much harder than people think to scale and go big and build manufacturing plants than, than people perhaps realize.
Hence the the the licensing. Business model.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I was I was talking with an investor his name is Brian Frank from FTW Ventures, and he had a really good line that I liked where he said that he likes to bet on startups that only have to perform one miracle. And he said, you know, if you're a startup and you need to first invent a new technology, that's one miracle right there.
But then you also have to become good at industrial manufacturing, which is an entirely different skill set. That's a second miracle. So, you know, it would be better to just pick one, are you really good at manufacturing or are you good at invention of technology? And it sounds like you're saying that you want to just keep on inventing technology and then licensing out, but you do have 40 mouths to feed, right?
You're, you're employing 40 people to invent all these technologies. So what will it take for you guys to become enterprise wide profitable, right? You have these agreements with these companies where you're actually putting Morrow into the world. But speaking of Morrow, like what is tomorrow? Look like, for example, what will it take for you all to get to a place where the company is profitable and not reliant on outside investment?
Alexandra French: Mm. And I think just before I jump to the investment part, I think the really key step to, to be able to do that is making sure you've got the right people in, in the team. 'cause as you said, that we're, we are really focused on the technology and we describe ourselves as I can material innovation company, not a manufacturing company, not a packaging company.
So we are the material innovators. But it's really, really important I think, to have the right people who are able to scale and go to market as well, because there is that, you know, sort of business development scale up all of that. So alongside our amazing scientists that who are, you know, developing these fantastic materials, we've got a lot of expertise from, from industry.
So I've got a few colleagues from Johnson, Matthew. Also in the company who are really leading that scale up so that they can transfer that technology to our licensed partners. Make that process really energy efficient, really cost effective. So it scales really well. We've got you know, people from Unilever, from p and g 'cause they think.
If you know, our, our CTO and some of our scientists have worked nowhere else than, than zr. So I think having this great mix, you know, of people who know what good looks like in a big corporate environment, but also knowing that there's a lot of stuff from big corporate that we don't need yet. 'cause we're too small.
We, we don't need that. And I think that's what's really helping us be successful in our, our scale up journey. So,
Paul Shapiro: so what? Question around, yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, you, you, you, you've got a monthly burn. Again, you've got 40 mouths that you're feeding all these scientists who need to do the tech transfer.
You need to make a certain amount of revenue or a certain amount of profit in order to be self-sustaining as a company. What needs to happen?
Alexandra French: Yeah, so we are I'm actually just doing a a, a series A right raise right now, just closing that out and, and that for us should be should give us get us to cash positive.
Because we're, we're now just, revenues are just starting this year, ramping through this year and then ramping up over, over coming years alongside our, our series A raise. So, you know, this is kind of a nice. Outlook to be, and you can never, you never say, you never need to raise again. A, you know, a startup is always looking at sort of like the next raise, but the, this raise should get us to cash positive.
We've got tons of ideas as well. So our CTO is like, you know, other applications that I've not even talked about. So yeah, we are likely to need to go out again. But, but this series, apus is in a really good position alongside, you know, the ramping of revenues that are just starting this year.
Paul Shapiro: Very cool.
Well, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and I can't wait to get to order some food that will come to my door with Morrow lining the package. That would be a pretty awesome thing to to get to see in, in my life. So I very much hope that that happens. Alexandra, let me ask you about resources that have been helpful for you.
You know, you talk about going from a big corporate to a small startup. Was there anything that you read or saw or listened to that might have been helpful in your journey here as a new CEO for a startup?
Alexandra French: Well, one of the things that I always think is, is really important is something I'm sort of really passionate is around developing the people, developing the team.
You can have like great idea, but it's actually you know, an entrepreneur that also can really. Develop a team and, and grow and, and, and shape those people is, is really key. And I started doing quite a lot of coaching. It when my time in Johnson, Matthew and I spent, you know, put some sort of time in terms of developing that further.
But it's something I like to bring a lot into my work. And I sort of helping, you know, my leadership team be really, sort of strong at, at developing their team. A book that I love, I think it's because I think it's really accessible to people even if you've not done formal coaching you're not really sure Sure.
What, what coaching is about. This book is sort of really accessible. It's called the Coaching Habit by a chap called Michael Bunge Stanya. And he, he shapes his really. On the face of it, very simple. Seven questions that are really powerful and just really help you, help your team be their absolute best.
So I've lent it to a lot of my my team who've kind of really enjoyed it. So, so that's something I a, a book that I'd recommend to sort of entrepreneurs and sort of stress the importance of don't just think about the fantastic technology developing, but also think about the team that you need to build because it's gonna be that team that's gonna help you make it a success as well.
Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that, that's certainly my experience is that the team is the, by far, the most critical asset. And you're you know, these early stage companies, almost always the investors are betting on the jockey, not the horse. Right? They, the horse might change, the company might pivot, it might pivot its technology or its business model, but you wanna make sure that there jockeys, you feel confidence.
And, and I, I couldn't agree more that the team really is the best asset that. Startups have. So we'll include a link to that book, the Coaching Habit at this episode's show notes, which is at business for good podcast.com. We'll also include links to other past episodes we've done with cool similar companies, whether footprint or bolt threads, which is doing spider silk.
So we'll include those as well. But Alexandra, let me ask you finally, if there are any other companies that you wish existed, right? So I imagine that you are tackling. Important part, but a small part of the plastic problem. Even if you all are wildly successful, it still is not addressing a huge part of the plastic universe.
So are there other companies that you wish would exist that maybe somebody listening should think about starting themselves? I.
Alexandra French: Well, one thing that I wish did exist, and if I can answer slightly, no, it's not a company, but it is something that would really, really help a lot of companies like us who are doing things with natural polymers to create these materials to replace plastics.
So the thing I wish existed is a, a kind of global standard, a sort of a recognized standard that certified plastic free. 'cause one of the biggest problems that faces what we are doing is around greenwashing and frankly just really, really confusing messaging for people like you and I. When you, you see something there that there's so many claims that are made, things that claim to be plastic free, claim to be compostable, claim to be fully biodegradable.
Frankly just aren't. And it makes it really, really hard for the general public to be able to make the right choices because of these, this sort of misinformation. So I would love somebody, a body you know, to, to create this international standard that certify something's plastic free, truly plastic free to make it really easy for consumers.
It's one of the reasons that we developed our Morrow brand and our Morrow mark. 'cause we want consumers when they see that Morrow Mark sitting alongside their, their favorite m brand on their packaging to know, Hey, when I see that Morrow mark, I know I've made a really great choice for the planet. Because ultimately we want to make sure that our solution makes it really, really easy for, for brands and consumers to make that great choice.
So that not quite a company, but that's something I would really wish for. So if any, anyone listening would like to help me. Get this sort of recognized mm-hmm. Certifying plastic free, get in touch, and that would be great to talk. Yeah.
Paul Shapiro: Cool. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I, I remember I saw there was something like a plastic free standard by Control Union Global.
I, I don't really remember what it was, but I, it sounded like what you were talking about, but maybe that's different. But I'm not sure if you've heard of that or not, but we will include a link to it just in case. People wanna look into that at this show's. Show notes for this episode at Business for Good podcast.com.
Have you heard of that one, Alexandra? Is that it? Is that one something? I haven't
Alexandra French: heard of that one. I'm, I'm gonna, I I say I don't, there was one that, I dunno whether you've heard of fla sticks. So plastics was a, a standard that it, it isn't plastic free. It sort of started out trying to be that it's, it's now more around sort of less plastic.
But again, it's quite confusing because, you know, this, this plastic standard, it, it, it now isn't saying it's a a plastic free standard. But I'm going to, to look up this one control union. You say I'm, I'm gonna, yeah,
Paul Shapiro: look this up.
Alexandra French: Cool. Yeah.
Paul Shapiro: Okay. Very cool. Well, listen, Alexandra, I'm rooting for your success.
It's really cool what you all are accomplishing and what you're doing. Congratulations on getting past the technology invention stage and actually getting it out into the world and commercializing. So many companies are really good at inventing something in the lab, but they just can't make it work and get it actually across that finish line.
Well, not the finish line, but. Fully across the start line, I guess into the world and start making revenue. So congratulations on bringing example that far so far, and we know that you're gonna raise your Series A and keep on going and doing even more. So I'm grateful for all you're doing Alexandria, and we're looking forward to seeing more of your success in the tomorrow.
Alexandra French: Thank you. Yeah, no, so it's been great talking to you and, and we're just super excited, as you say, get our product out there into the hands of consumers, just to see, you know, it is absolutely possible to replace plastic without having to compromise on, on performance.
Paul Shapiro: Very cool.