Shortly after Shannon Boase moved to Malaysia in 1997, her view of the country's famed emerald-green seas and lush rainforests was clouded. A graduate of business schools in France and her hometown of Vancouver, including an Asian Studies program that offered work placement in Asia, Boase was enjoying her overseas stint - until plumes of smoke sent her allergies into full wheeze, the result of land clearing and burn-off from the semi-annual palm fruit harvest in Malaysia and Indonesia. One day it got so bad schools, airports and ports closed; residents were advised to stay inside. Boase thought there must be a better, healthier, perhaps even profitable way to make use of the fibrous waste left after extraction of the palm oil, a valuable commodity of which Malaysia claims 60 to 70 per cent of the world market.
"It constricted your life," says Boase, who nevertheless stayed seven years in the country, where she launched a consulting firm. "It was always in the back of my mind: there's a problem, we have to come up with a solution."
A few years later, she began working with the venture capital arm of the Malaysian government, which was also keen on clearing the air of the noxious fumes. Collectively, they came up with the idea to turn the leftover palm husk fiber, normally bound for a bonfire, into compostable food packaging and produce trays. "Food packaging was a logical place to start because of its high volume and relatively low design components," says Boase, now 41. Plus, the waxy palm fiber is naturally oil- and water-resistant, is freezable and microwavable, biodegrades in 90 days, and comes from an abundantly renewable resource. Before she could put the plan into action, however, an illness in the family sent her back to Vancouver in early 2004. Rather than leave the project behind, she brought it to her own backyard, betting Canada was ripe for an alternative to the plethora of plastic on local store shelves.
By the end of 2004 and early 2005, Boase had acquired the North American distribution rights for Malaysia's palm fiber, rounded up investors, lined up distributors on Vancouver Island, in the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, secured a factory in Malaysia through her partner there, set up an inventory warehouse near Seattle, and launched Earthcycle Packaging Ltd. out of shared office space in downtown Vancouver with just herself and a staff of three. Soon she was being hailed in the business sections of North American newspapers and magazines like the Vancouver Sun, 24 Hours, and Fast Company as a young entrepreneur on the brink of a business bonanza. After all, what company wouldn't leap at the chance to ease the groaning landfills of all that plastic?
Well, most companies, as it turns out. Apart from Capers and Loblaw's, which used her trays for blueberries and mushrooms last summer, Canadian businesses were mostly blasé about the product. Boase had better luck south of the border: Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Publix, Trader Joe's, Kroger, Henry's and Wal-Mart all adopted her packaging. Her only Canadian client is produce consolidator Oppenheimer Group in Coquitlam, B.C. Boase cites economics (too expensive to make the switch-over from existing contracts), stacking issues (the trays use a thin plastic film that's also compostable but hardly protective) and resistance to change from the cheap, easy and abundant plastic as reasons Canada is slower to get on board. "As much as we're selling packaging, we're selling change," she says. And the selling is targeted at the grower or consolidator, who then pitches it to the retailer.
"Historically, the environmental solution has been more expensive and it has been inconvenient," says Boase. But, she says, Earthcycle packaging doesn't cost any more. "Industry standards are five to 10 per cent of the total cost of a product [is]spent on packaging, including the labels," says Boase. "So, for example, the cost of a traditional PET [polyethylene terephthalate, used for such products as carbonated beverage bottles and peanut butter jars]clamshell holding $3 worth of tomatoes would [be]in the area of 25 to 30 cents - which is exactly the price of our product. So, not only is Earthcycle packaging almost identical in price, it is environmentally sustainable."
Still, Boase remains optimistic. "I know that the excessiveness we are all a part of will have to swing in the other direction, and when it does there will be a lot of room for the pendulum to move," she says.
Boase spent the first two years selling business to business, traveling to trade shows and exhibitions to build awareness. She's now targeting the consumer directly through in-store, point-of-purchase advertising, demo booths and the Earthcycle sticker on packaged produce that use her trays. "[It's now about]educating consumers on the fact that they do have the choice, that it is very easy for them to be responsible," she says. "We're not guilting them into it. We're just saying, 'If you buy this instead of plastic, it's easy. Even if you don't compost, it can still go through recycling.'"
This year, she feels she's finally gaining some traction. "2007 is 'the' year," she says. "The momentum towards people becoming more aware and responsible about their choices as consumers grew in 2006 but, so far, 2007 is proving to be when people are actually putting their desires into action."
Boase won't name names, but says at least one very recognizable retailer will begin carrying Earthcycle packaging in Vancouver-area stores over the next few weeks. "We have been doing a significant amount of spade work on them since last year, and they have now committed to various programs using our packaging."
While it's been a grind to get nibbles from Canadian companies, just the idea of it was an easier sell to an impressive array of advisors, partners and investors. "[My investors]are people I've met over the years during my time in Asia doing business," says Boase, who travels back to Malaysia every three months. "Some of them are investors, some are not. I have an international investor group, some in Malaysia, some American, and in Canada it's David Nelson. They know me, they trust me, they see the passion. It wasn't difficult raising money."
Nelson, chairman and CEO of Nelson International Ltd., which conducts a lot of its own business in Asia, acknowledges backing Boase was a no-brainer. "When you're starting something like that, you have to go for angel financing, which is based on people believing in the person and the project," says Nelson, the only investor who agreed to being named publicly. Both they and Boase are publicity shy when it comes to names and financial figures. "We didn't think about it a whole lot; we knew her and we knew the concept."
Nelson first met Boase in his capacity as advisor for over 20 years to Capilano College's Institute of International Management in North Vancouver, then followed her progress later in Southeast Asia. "I've seen a lot of the graduates and Shannon certainly was one of the top ones to come out of there," he says. "She had proven herself working overseas and had the qualities, I thought, to make this a success. You have to go before the public, you have to call on people like Wal-Mart, you have to be presentable and come across as somebody who knows your stuff. Most important of all, you've got to be able to show a lot of patience and perseverance, because this is a pioneering project. She's done a remarkable job in a very short period of time selling this concept."
Still, a good chunk of the cash is her own (she refuses to quote a figure), which has made her much more cautious about how she spends it. "In the start-ups that I've done before in Asia, it's always been with other people's money," says Boase. "This start-up is a significant portion of my money, so it makes a huge difference. I'm a little more controlling."
Although she thinks only in six-month blocks, Boase has her sights set on the big leagues: take-out food packaging and other non-food related plans she declines to reveal. Her biggest hurdle is weaning the consumer off her most formidable competitor - plastic. "I'm not a plastic hater; I don't think you need to eradicate it," she says. "I think it has its use in many respects, but for food packaging, for highly consumable, disposable product, why are we using plastic? It's just a waste."