The race is on to replace single use plastics, says Indian sustainable packaging startup Fibmold. And while robust—and cost-effective—alternatives may not (yet) be available for every application, molded fiber products are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
Founded in late 2022 by packaging industry veterans Param Gandhi and Vaibhav Garg, Fibmold upcycles plant fibers such as sugarcane bagasse into foodservice containers and is now expanding into new areas including electronics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
AgFunderNews (AFN) caught up with Gandhi (PG) to discuss how Fibmold is tapping into what he believes is a “multi-billion-dollar opportunity.”
AFN: What is molded fiber packaging?
PG: The great thing about molded fiber is you can take any agricultural residue such as sugarcane bagasse, forest byproduct or bamboo and convert it into molded fiber by pulping it (adding water and grinding it into a fiber slurry) and feeding it into thermoforming machines.
Right now, we buy pulp from pulp mills and then rehydrate it, but long term we want to be vertically integrated [ie. doing pulping on-site], which will save a lot of power that’s currently getting wasted in double drying, double heating, and transportation.
If we did everything on site, it would disrupt the cost model very significantly, enabling us to bring down the cost by at least 20-30%, which basically means that we can start achieving, in various use cases, price parity with plastics.
In our process today, we mix clean water with the pulp to make a slurry, add the water- or oil-proofing chemicals if needed, and then feed the slurry into thermoforming machines. The process is completely automated except for the packing station part.
The pulp first gets formed and then gets pressed at high temperature and high pressure before going to the trimming station and then to the final packing station.
AFN: It sounds pretty energy intensive?
PG: Yes, it is an energy intensive process, because the temperature is between 170-220⁰C and the pressure is somewhere around 60-70kN, which is why we’re looking at opportunities across the value chain where we can save energy.
That’s one of the key reasons why at some point we plan to backward integrate into pulping, because we will save a lot of energy, which will also help with the overall LCA (life cycle assessment) score.
AFN: What’s driving demand for molded fiber packaging?
PG: There’s consumer pressure, but also regulatory pressure to replace single use plastics; governments around the world have started to regulate them and brands need to find a solution, so this is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity.
And while there are multiple players experimenting with different materials, there’s no global dominant number one player, so we feel there’s a lot of white space here.
AFN: How does molded fiber compare to bioplastics such as PLA (polylactic acid from corn starch, sugarcane etc)?
PG: The biggest challenge I see with PLA is in the southern hemisphere, especially in countries like India or Singapore or the Middle East, where it’s extremely hot and humid, PLA does not survive well in heat and humidity. The product will melt and crack and its functional properties can fall apart.
Another challenge is that PLA looks exactly like a plastic, and companies who are collecting and separating waste aren’t very good at distinguishing between PLA and regular plastic, and if they don’t, the PLA can end up in landfill along with regular plastics, and it doesn’t naturally decompose without industrial composting.
AFN: What types of plastic are you replacing at Fibmold?
PG: We’re replacing various categories of single use, rigid plastics, except those used to hold liquids and beverages. So we can’t, at the moment, replace a water bottle economically and at scale using molded fiber, but we can replace a whole bunch of other single use plastics that are used in packaged foods, foodservice, electronics, FMCG, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
We have developed molds for everything from pharmaceutical injectable trays to cosmetic inserts, dosing scoops, [airline oven safe] aviation trays, and dessert boxes.
AFN: What kind of moisture barriers can you create for molded fiber products?
PG: You can create barrier properties by adding chemicals to the pulp itself but we’re also developing an in-house technology to coat the inner layer of the product with an aqueous based poly-free chemical [no petrochemicals], which basically will increase the oxygen barrier as well as the water vapor barrier properties of the product.
In order to apply this coating evenly and smoothly, we’re also working with a couple of companies based out of Europe to develop a particular process during pulping where the fibers become very evenly distributed and evenly spread such that the layer in contact with the food has minimal pinholes and very good layers of fiber.
This means that the application of the coating chemical is done in a far more efficient manner with minimal pinholes, which increases its barrier properties.
AFN: What are the limitations of molded fiber products in the food and beverage arena?
PG: If the packaging is in what we call an impulse category, when a consumer pretty much consumes the product immediately, or within 60-minutes or so, for something like food delivery, that’s not a problem at all, and we have molded fiber delivery containers in the market as we speak.
But the next goal is can we extend the use case to retail or packaged foods such as cup noodles with a six to eight month shelf life? Can we improve the oxygen barrier and other properties such that these plastic containers can be replaced by fiber-based containers?
AFN: How would you characterize the molded fiber landscape?
PG: China is steps ahead on all fronts of technology, whether it’s automation and software, systems integration, or molds. Whereas in India, most manufacturers are focused on the low hanging fruit, the plates and the trays, which are widely accepted in global markets.
But few players are experimenting as we are to really expand the scope of applications for molded fiber. We have a prototyping laboratory, and then if something works, we have the capability to immediately scale up a solution, because we have our own manufacturing facility.
But we actually want the whole industry to expand as adoption will only grow if there is widespread product availability. It cannot be that only one or two companies in the world can supply certain products as brands will not have the confidence to switch over.
AFN: How expensive is your packaging vs the rigid plastics it’s replacing?
PG: If you’re talking about a decent quality plastic product, we’re almost at parity, but when we disrupt the cost model with vertical integration, we believe we’ll be at parity. There’s a certain amount of inefficiency in the process right now, which we wish to eliminate.
AFN: How easy would it be for you to do the pulping on site?
PG: Pulping sounds easy, but as people who are even loosely associated with the industry will know, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Plus, we’re not looking to copy and paste the standard pulping models; we would want to do something more with more versatile pulping units enabling us to pulp a broader range of raw materials.
AFN: What scale are you operating at?
PG: We’re producing about eight to 10 tons per day of molded fiber products, so while we call it a pilot facility because our vision is much larger, it’s actually producing a sizable amount of product already.
AFN: What kind of customers are you supplying right now?
PG: At least for the next six months, we’re focused on the domestic Indian market, because there’s significant demand. The idea is that we want to stabilize our production and then start exploring export markets. We’ve started in foodservice, but in the next six months, we are confident of opening new product categories in pharmaceuticals, electronics, and FMCG.
AFN: How have you funded the business?
PG: We raised a $10 million seed round in 2023 led by Omnivore and Accel, which covered this first facility we’ve put up, some new product development and some team building. We hope that this facility will create a solid and sustainable foundation for our company in terms of the P&L, and then any future fundraise we do will basically be for growth.
AFN: What criteria have you set for your products in terms of recycling or composting?
PG: Number one, it should be 100% recyclable in existing recycling streams, and number two, it has to be naturally compostable, which basically means that it doesn’t need any special conditions or industrial facilities to decompose and disintegrate.
AFN: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced since starting the business?
PG: When you’re supplying a new material, customers need to do extensive testing and there are a lot of stakeholders in every customer’s ecosystem that we need to convince, and that takes time. And then on the process side, we’re trying to create products which haven’t been created before, so all the iterative R&D can get very frustrating. But you have to keep looking at the end goal and keep going.
Even if only one out of 10 things that we try works, it’ll create a substantial impact, so that’s what kind of keeps me going.
Further reading:
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