Entrepreneurs
These Brooklyn Social Entrepreneurs Want You To Party Hard, Party Without Red Plastic Cups
The plastic red cup is a true icon of American culture. It’s there
for the high school keg party, the college pizza study party, the
awkward office holiday party and every milestone in between. And that’s
reflected in the figures. The red solo cup – ubiquitous beer pong
receptacle of choice – is part of a gargantuan industry of disposable
plastics. Solo Cup, the almost-80 year old company that makes the
cherished red cup was gobbled up by Dart Container in a $1 billion sale
in 2012. The tableware industry alone is worth $5.5 billion.
It’s an industry two twenty-something social entrepreneurs
in Greenpoint, Brooklyn are trying to shake up as demand for
sustainable alternatives grows. The market for sustainable tableware is
now worth around $700 million and growing, says Susty Party CEO Emily Doubilet.
The Susty Party Team
The daughter of two National Geographic underwater photographers,
Doubilet grew up swimming around stunning coral reefs and concerned
about environmental destruction. She also loved performing and produced
global warming themed burlesque shows and performed in a band in
Brooklyn while working as a sustainability advisor. At a party one night
she met Jessica Holsey, a Credit Suisse private equity Wall Streeter
who’d studied economics at Harvard where she’d captained the basketball
team. “It was awesome, I had the great dream job,” says Holsey. But
she’d started thinking more about investing her time in a project that
involved social as well as financial gains. “It’s funny – it took me two
years working on Wall Street to even come across the term ‘social entrepreneur’,” she says.
“I wanted to be involved in the environmental movement as a person
who loves parties and entertaining in Brooklyn,” says Doubilet. Noticing
the amount of plastic waste that often accompanies a good shindig,
Doubilet wanted to find a fun way to make her events match up with her
ideals. “I started thinking, how can we have a really positive event or
show without creating all this waste?” says Doubilet. “We’re
environmentalists who love a good party.”
She’d “scoured the earth for compostable tableware,” but found there
was no seamless way to order online. Holsey and Doubilet decided to join
forces to launch a webstore and later their own branded products. The
duo also partnered with U.S. factories who employ blind and visually impaired people.
The range, made from compostable materials like wood and tapioca starch comes in many different colors.
“We wanted to create value locally,” says Doubilet. The National
Industry For The Blind powered initiative employs 12 people to make
Susty’s line of colorful compostable tableware in the USA, unlike lots
of other compostable tableware, which is imported from overseas. Last
year, Doubilet and Hosley, who were named in FORBES’ 2014 30 under 30 list,
won a $40,ooo award for social impact from the Hitachi Foundation,
allowing them to expand and continue to create jobs for the blind.
Susty was self-funded and bootstrapped for four years. Expenses were
low at first as they were just running an online store, but after a
nerve wracking meeting with Whole Foods in 2012 Susty got placed in
stores at first regionally but then nationally last year. They began
expanding their own designs and hunting down new materials. They’ve
recently launched the world’s first biodegradable plastic tablecloth,
says Doubilet. To keep up momentum and increase research and development
into innovative materials like tapioca starch, Susty closed at $500,000
seed round led by Radicle Capital, an investor focused on early stage sustainable companies.
“We’ve launched a ton of new products,” says Holsey. Sales have
jumped from $500,000 in 2012 to $1.2 million in 2013, she added. The
deal with Whole Foods came about because the supermarket is running an
initiative that supports millenial social entrepreneurs, says Doubilet.
“The meeting with Whole Foods was the start of launching our own brand,”
she says. “They’ve been a dream partner,” providing mentorship and
guidance. So too have United Natural Foods, Inc. a national distributor
of all things to do with organic food and packaging.
Another key advisor is Julie Bell, a Partner at San Francisco Equity
Partners. Bell’s portfolio company, Method Products, which makes
naturally-derived, biodegradable household cleaners, laundry detergents
and soaps merged with Belgian firm Ecover to create a $200 million
company in 2012. “She sees a lot of similarity,” says Doubilet. “It’s
approaching a product that might seem boring or stale and thinking,
let’s make this a really fun experience and good for environment and
community as well.”
CEO Emily Doubilet. Susty’s range is now sold in Whole Foods nationwide.
So far, so sunny but
dangers lurk. Susty’s products are still much more expensive than their
plastic equivalents. A box of their wooden cutlery is $8.99 for 50 vs
Dixie’s $4.99 for 100 price point. Also, some of the products can only
be broken down through industrial composting, an option only really
accessible in a few cities like Portland, Seattle and San Francisco
(although Doubilet thinks a change in legislation will make curbside
composting pickup a reality in NYC soon too).It’s hard to know what
would happen if one of the plastic giants started offering a viable
compostable alternative themselves at a much lower premium. But Doubilet
and Holsey remain upbeat, determined to party on. They’re gearing up
to appear on Shark Tank on April 4th determined to bring Susty Party to
the attention of millions of Americans in time for picnic season.
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