Dissolvable Packaging! Alex Abbott (SmartSolve) / Valentina Milanova (Daye)

A first of its kind dissolvable packaging for tampons and more!
Also the worlds first pain relieving tampon from Daye!

What if packaging could be flushed along with the tampon?
How can packaging be disposed of without a garbage can?

Connect with SmartSolve and Alex here:
https://www.smartsolve.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-abbott-%F0%9F%8C%8E%F0%9F%92%A7%E2%99%BB%EF%B8%8F-186b6217/

Connect with Valentina and Daye here:
https://www.yourdaye.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentina-milanova-%F0%9F%87%BA%F0%9F%87%A6-13899564/

Check out our sponsor Orora Packaging Solutions 
https://ororapackagingsolutions.com/

Check out our sponsor this month: 
https://smartsolve.com/

https://specright.com/ 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1329820053/ref=as_sl_pc_qf_sp_asin_til?tag=corygat

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

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. Today's guests, I have two amazing people, are Alex Abbott with Smart Solve, he's the CRO, and we also have Valentina Milanova, the founder and CEO and CPO of Daye. How are you guys doing?

Alex Abbott: 0:50

Great.

Valentina Milanova: 0:50

Hi,

Alex Abbott: 0:50

Corey. Thank you for

Cory Connors: 0:51

having us. Thanks for joining us. Really excited to, to, talk about what the synergies between your two companies and the very unique, paper and, material we have here for, for the day product. But before we get to these awesome things that you're doing, Valentina, will you give us a little bit about your background and how you got here?

Valentina Milanova: 1:14

Yeah, absolutely. So they is a platform for gynecological health management, which is repurposing the modern menstrual tampon to do more than just soak up menstrual fluid. so we started in 2017 and after three years of research and development, we introduced the world's first pain relieving tampon to market, which has now supported the menstrual health of over a hundred thousand patients in. The UK, later, in 2022, we introduced a diagnostic tampon, which enables people to screen for sexually transmitted diseases, vaginal infections, fertility blockers, all from the comfort of their home. and alongside these two physical products, we also have a digital telemedical layer that enables people to manage their menstrual, vaginal and hormonal health at home through consultations with gynae health specialists. Prescription treatments and lifestyle change recommendations. My personal background is in law, economics, and public health. and I've been the founder of this company for Almost eight

Alex Abbott: 2:16

years now. Wow.

Cory Connors: 2:18

That's very impressive. Quite a background and a first of its kind. well done. Kudos to you, Alex. Let's, let's talk about your background a little bit. Where'd you come from?

Alex Abbott: 2:29

Yeah. Thank you so much. yeah, I've been privileged to be a part of smart solve, for just under a year now and came to smart solve with, close to 17 years of manufacturing and sales and packaging experience. and, you and was really attracted to smart solve as it's a company with a very exciting future, really on the cutting edge of what I think will be a valuable niche within packaging and sustainability. So, smart solve is a company that specializes in water soluble packaging and we do that within labels, pouches and flexible packaging. And it's a very exciting medium that has been underutilized with the bright future and day has really been an ideal partner in terms of their vision of starting packaging with the end of life 1st. So they know what certifications and what claims they want to make with packaging. And then they go from there, and that is exactly aligned with how smart salt goes to market with end of life story 1st. So, it's been a great partnership. We have an exciting future and they've really helped lead the way for us. and then my personal background, is, in business and, also theology. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so yeah, I have a MBA in business and an MA in theology. So that's a funny fact about me. Yeah. And contrary to what many people think, they are not in contradiction, so, but that's a story for another

Cory Connors: 3:46

day. We'll do another podcast about that with you and Adam and Ryan Fox, all former pastors.

Alex Abbott: 3:54

Yes, I know Adam would walk arms with me quickly, so it'd be good. Yes.

Cory Connors: 3:59

Yeah. Well, that's wonderful. And I'm amazed at how these, your two companies have come together to produce something. That's a first of its kind. Valentina, can you walk through with us this amazing product and how it works? And then Alex, if you can speak to the packaging, That I'm holding and tell us why it's so unique and so important.

Alex Abbott: 4:28

Yes. Glad to. Yeah. So

Valentina Milanova: 4:31

when I first started today, I assumed that we would be able to outsource our manufacturing. I assumed that there would be an existing tampon manufacturer that we would be able to work with. But then as I gradually started learning more and more, the tampon industry, which is one of the last greatly monopolized industries out there. I realized that The sustainability standards and the quality standards in temple manufacturing are not as high as they should be. so over 90 percent of the tampon and pad products that are on the market today are made out of non recyclable, petrol derived plastics. This is the inside of the temple on the. Applicator, the wrapper, so not just the packaging, it's the product itself. And on average, people use about 11, 000 period care products within their lifetime, which all end up in landfills or in our oceans or on our beaches. So, I gradually realized we were going to have to bring manufacturing in house at Daye, so we could deliver on our sustainability promise and our product functionality promise. and we started by repurposing organic fibers. So, noble organic fibers for the heart of our tampons for the absorbent part of our tampon. and then we started thinking about how we can make the packaging more sustainable as well. we wouldn't be contributing to non recyclable plastic waste. and we were also thinking about the consumer experience, the consumer behavior. so one pain point in changing your period care product is that there isn't always a dedicated bin that you can dispose of the product after you have changed it. and there's no recycling options for period care products. So we thought that having the experience where you can flush the packaging. Down the toilet after you finished using it would be beneficial from, a customer experience perspective, but also from a sustainability perspective. and then we set out on a product development journey with, the folks at Smart Solve so that we could create the world's first water soluble tampon wrapper. and as I mentioned, this is now being used by over a hundred thousand people in the UK. we recently received an FDA approval for our water soluble, tampon, wrapper and tampon. Thank you. so we're now expanding to the U. S. market as well. and we hope that water soluble packaging will just become the norm in the period care industry and more people and more brands will adopt water soluble packagings.

Alex Abbott: 6:46

That's

Cory Connors: 6:46

amazing. And this pain relief, introduction into the tampon is that a brand new idea? Or is that something that's been done before? Because. I'm honestly not very familiar with that market. I, my apologies.

Valentina Milanova: 7:00

No, that's okay. It has never been, delivered to market, so it has never been commercialized, but Procter and Gamble did have the idea at one point in the 70s, I believe, to develop a pain relieving tampon, but they gave up on the concept because they thought the product was too market wouldn't be large enough, which I believe is a significant oversight. over 90 percent of people experience period pain. It's an incredibly common yet greatly trivialized, gynecological health problem. The British medical journal says that we lose about nine productive days each year. to period pain. and if you have a more serious underlying cause of your period pain, such as endometriosis, you can forego as much as 50, 000 in earned income in the time that it takes you to obtain a diagnosis and manage your symptoms. so we know that female pain is generally trivialized, but I think the period pain in particular is incredibly trivialized. the moment you're, you have your first period as a girl, you're taught, grit your teeth. This is just part of the experience of being a woman. If you can't make it through your menstrual cramps, how are you going to, deliver a baby? but, research from university college London from 2016, has shown the period pain can be as painful as having a heart attack. So it is a significant public health concern. We need to address it better because, over half of the population right now, Just has to make do with ineffective solutions for their menstrual health and their period pain. And we're taking advantage of the fact that the vagina is one of the safest and most effective ways to deliver medications in women in general. So the tampon in the future can be used for a variety of drug delivery applications. the vagina is directly connected to your bloodstream, which is why it's really important. Anything you place inside your vagina is. not plastic and as clean as possible. but when you deliver medications, vaginally, they work faster. They have fewer side effects because they don't affect your liver or your digestive tract. that's the premise that we built the pain relieving

Alex Abbott: 8:55

tampon on.

Cory Connors: 8:57

Wow. That's an, that's a lot of insightful information. Thank you so much for that. And I had Never thought of that, other than always sympathetic towards, women that are having their cycle. That's, I've only, learned from my wife and others that have had it and they've talked about, the significant amount of pain and uncomfort, involved there. So,

Alex Abbott: 9:18

yeah, Corey, it's amazing. And, in high school, I was a golfer. So it's safe to say that girls didn't pay me much attention. but, I'm the youngest of 2 older sisters and then I'm married and I have a son and 3 daughters. So a funny thing about me is my life is full of women and they're wonderful. And so to see what Valentine and day has done to improve the care of women. I'm just very appreciative because it has been very overlooked. and it's great on the packaging side of this. Yeah, let's talk about this. Yeah, so I'd like to start with our company's vision and explain that, to 2 ways in a very tangible sense. So our vision as a company of smart solve is to make packaging no longer trash, which is a vision I can get behind because. Being in packaging for so long, we have, I'm really proud of the industry in terms of there's a lot of really smart, capable, innovative, creative people. Well, highly educated people. And I think that we just can do better with those incredible talents in terms of having packaging not end up as trash. and this illustrates it in 2 ways. 1, the Femcare market is 1 of the single biggest issues of plastic waste outside of any of the food market that there is. And so Valentina is really tapping into a category that, improvement is. Very possible, and so that's really appreciated. But then for us specific to our package, so they order them a pouch material that we call 3 x 15. it's a water soluble paper. It's fully printable, so brands can identify themselves as they so desire. We can print it with flexo or digital water based inks, which that's counterintuitive to people. Sometimes they say it's a water soluble material, but you want water based things. That's correct. but we can print anything on it that normal paper can be. so it's fully printable and identifiable. And a Daye's a great example on that, because their brand, their marketing has gone viral with this and they've identified the packaging as core to their product strategy. So. We have not been just seen as a commoditized widget. We've actually been seen as a key plank in their marketing. and then the 0 waste impact comes after the marketing, which is now the pouch. Once the tampon is pulled out of the pouch, you're right there by a toilet and it's put in the toilet and it is completely safe flushable for municipalities. We actually pass the same standards that toilet paper does. we're just not in that category because we're not that product, but the same flush test and slash talk slash box test and all of that we pass. So it's completely safe. for any flushable concept at all a sink, a toilet, anything it may be. And it's just, it's a great thing to watch people's reaction when there is no trash can needed. There's no recycling concepts needed. you have this material that is less persistent and really provides zero waste. So it's a neat story.

Cory Connors: 12:46

Really impressive. And it's beautiful. The print is, very attractive and nice to look at. It's got a cool feel to it. It

Alex Abbott: 12:54

feels like

Valentina Milanova: 12:54

paper. You can touch it with wet hands, so it doesn't disintegrate straight away. but really quickly, once you flush it down the toilet, or Corey, if you have a glass of water, you can just dissolve it in water very quickly. you can flush it down the sink, you can flush it down the toilet. and we've never had any complaints from our customers when it comes to flushability. we've reached quite significant scale now with, with this flushable wrapper. We've had many people use it. Many times, over and over again, because our product is, is a monthly product. and it has become a point of viral marketing for us as well, because the consumer does want more sustainable solutions, but they're not a material scientist themselves. so it's hard for them to, assess what is really sustainable. There are a lot of brands which are making lots of green washing claims. I always find it funny that, you have all of these, tampon products now that are claiming they're a hundred percent organic. Yet they're wrapped in a, plastic wrapper, plastic applicator, plastic box, which are frequently non recyclable due to how thin the underlying material is. It's been, a big point of our growth journey has been having access to these plushable packaging technologies to answer a real need from our community and our customer base.

Alex Abbott: 14:04

And it

Cory Connors: 14:05

sounds like the customer response has been really great to this

Alex Abbott: 14:10

innovation. Yeah, Corey, I would add, you and I, but I'll spotlight on you in a very complimentary way. Right? You are a packaging nerd. Right? Very and very proud to be excellent. Right? Well, and but you're also someone who sells packaging and, the pain point we all have, which is if you sell a package that's commoditized in the same, it just. At a certain point, it loses fun because you're just playing the same game. but when you have a package that A, is on the leading edge of sustainability, and B, the marketing group is saying, I can go viral with this packaging. So you're improving the planet, you're improving creation, but you're also arming marketing with something that they feel is differentiated. You begin to have a lot of fun again with packaging. And so that is a fun place to be at the intersection of sustainability and marketing.

Cory Connors: 14:58

And it's such an, I agree. And thank you for the kind words. I, yes, I am a packaging nerd and do embrace that title. 26 years in the industry has taught me to, appreciate that. And, enjoy that along with the other packaging nerds. There are many. I can attest to that. I've interviewed it. And we need them all, right? We need several hundred of them. Yeah, we need them all. And, this, when the consumer uses this product and gets to have that experience of throwing the whole thing right in the toilet, that's gotta be a relief. one less thing to worry about. Like you said, there's not always a garbage can right there for, female

Alex Abbott: 15:39

products.

Valentina Milanova: 15:41

Yeah, and it's also more quiet to, to open it up, which, some people appreciate because if you're in a public restroom, you don't necessarily want to, attract attention. Some of the plastic wrappers I've read reviews about them being as loud to open as a bag of chips. Yeah, and it feels really smooth. it's really easy to open. and from a printability and marketing perspective, we've been able to, print our exact pantone colors, which we actually haven't been able to do with other, sustainable packagings. We've experimented. We've experimented with compostable foils, which Feel very similar to plastic, so it can be misleading for the consumer because they don't know whether they can recycle them or not, because they feel like plastic, even though they're compostable and that can actually create more issues for recycling facilities. But the, smart, solve proper, as you can see, it feels like paper and we make it really clear that it's flushable. and it. I'm personally really impressed by how quickly it dissolves in water. we're now working on developing a flushable applicator as well, that takes a little bit longer to dissolve in, in water, but the, SmartSoft packaging, it goes away, in my experience, faster than toilet paper.

Cory Connors: 16:47

That's impressive. Yeah, the colors, the two samples I've received were, really cool blue and green kind of, pastel, very light. nice, nice artwork. Well done. I noticed it doesn't say anywhere that you should flush it. is that on the box or is that? It's on the

Alex Abbott: 17:04

box.

Valentina Milanova: 17:05

Okay. It's on the box and in all of our marketing materials,

Alex Abbott: 17:07

yeah.

Cory Connors: 17:09

And I think a lot of your customers are buying it because of that, it sounds like. Yeah. Alex, I wanted to ask you a couple technical questions about the material. yes, it's flushable. is it recyclable? Is it compostable as well?

Alex Abbott: 17:24

Yeah, so the material is FSC certified. So that's 1 of the 1st questions that we could ask. so we do have that loop there. And then, yes, we are material is what we call readily biodegradable. So, since it's less persistent than many other materials, it is not only will biodegrade, but it will biodegrade very quickly. yeah, and so. That's another 1 of the advantages. and you think about, the waste issues that we all know for beaches, streets, roads, populations that have lots of resource and populations that have less resource. But this material with its lack of persistence, if it ends up on the side of the road or in a park or something, it will dissolve. It is readily biodegradable. And so that really relieves. a lot of issues and should be a great benefit to a brand, going forward as well. So, yes, flushable, readily biodegradable. and we really want to continue to talk about this concept of persistence, or lack of persistence in material because I think that is. One of the tangible ideas that's easy to get our minds wrapped around as we try to reduce waste is what materials are just persistent and what materials aren't. And if we can find solutions that are less persistent, we're really going to solve a lot of downstream problems when we do it on the front end. so, yeah, it's a water soluble wood grade material. SFC certified. It's the highest water soluble quality material you will find. that is something we don't hide behind. That's something we're actually very proud of. It is the highest in quality, which is why I think you're hearing Valentina say that she thinks it, actually dissolves faster than toilet paper. it's quiet. it has a lot of good attributes.

Cory Connors: 18:59

Really impressive. I'm excited to be talking about it today. Valentina, do you have any other products coming out that you want to pitch to the consumer on this show?

Valentina Milanova: 19:09

We have the diagnostic tampon as well. and that's going to be, wrapped sustainably and the water soluble applicator will be, coming out later this year.

Cory Connors: 19:18

Incredible. Very impressive. Thank you both. Alex, how about you? Anything else? any other uses for this kind of packaging? I could see straws being wrapped in this. I could see all kinds of things.

Alex Abbott: 19:29

Yeah. I appreciate it. I'll take a minute because for us, as far as all, this is a very exciting question to answer. so, our products today largely are face stock, pouch stock and label stock. and we're working on getting a pair of certified for labels. and so there's a lot of very exciting applications out there, and we continue to gauge and want to engage in all of those. But a distinction in our businesses, those solutions, they are little to no barrier. and we actually have a patent and are working to begin, entering the flexible packaging market. Where we can combine water soluble paper material with any and all bio residents. And the reason that's important is because it's going to allow us to introduce barrier into this equation. And once we introduce barrier, there's a huge, big world of possibilities on what can be used with water soluble paper and bio resins to provide the materials that are less persistent and that are flexible that are ready to biodegradable compostable. There's going to be a whole range of claims made there. But we want to come out with those stock specs early next year, and we have development partners already and are looking for more development partners to engage in service and specific specification creation when they have an issue that they know they want to solve. we think food is going through packaging is a huge category for this, particularly with single use waste items, but we are very excited about our future in terms of introducing water soluble. Materials with barrier to the market and really our goal. it's a big goal, but we believe it will happen is. We look to become an option on the menu of packaging solutions today. Water soluble paper is under considered under thought. understudied, and, we look to be tomorrow. Just an option on the menu, and that can have a really big impact. So we are very excited about what's to come. Love it. Well done. And

Valentina Milanova: 21:23

if I can just add 1 quick point to this, I think the introduction of water soluble packaging is very feasible from a commercial standpoint and a practical standpoint. So a day, we didn't have to change our wrapping lines in order to accommodate for smart. So, so we didn't. Have to build an entirely new or person entirely new wrapping line. We could just adjust the heat on our existing wrapping line, which was originally designed to work with standard plastic materials and from a cost perspective. I do think that water soluble packaging are really worth it because of their. viral marketing potential. Every consumer now wants to be more sustainable in their choices. So while, other sort of packaging are not as affordable as plastic, they really do pay off from, a marketing and, practical business bottom line perspective. But the operational simplicity of introducing water soluble packaging in our production was something that I was impressed by. I wasn't expecting this. So I thought we maybe would have to invest in new hardware and new machine setups. But no, we could just repurpose the existing

Alex Abbott: 22:30

lines. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that Valentina, but that's a couple of just misconceptions about water soluble material. We have a lot of experience and know how with heat seal. So, anything in the heat seal category is very welcome and friendly. And then the material is more persistent than people perceive it to be for sure. Not persistent durable is the word I meant to say it's more durable. So, what do I mean by durable? it does really well in cold environments to very hot environments temperature. and then it's, it can be stored in an array of environments. and so it is more durable and use and more ready for manufacturing than maybe is perceived. So I really appreciate you making that comment.

Valentina Milanova: 23:10

Yeah, no, I can testify to that. We don't need any special storage conditions in our facility to store the reels of smarts of paper. and in addition to this, our tampons still pass sterility testing, even after being wrapped in water soluble packaging. So it is airtight. it does provide a good level of protection. while also, not creating waste unnecessarily.

Cory Connors: 23:33

Amazing. Well done, both of you. Valentina, where should customers, look

Alex Abbott: 23:37

to buy these?

Valentina Milanova: 23:38

So we are currently available direct to consumer from our website, which is YourDay. That's Y O U R D A Y E dot com. And you can also follow us on social media. We create great content on gynecological health and sustainability. we are at Y O U R D The a y e your day.

Cory Connors: 24:02

Thank you so much. And I appreciate your time and your wisdom. Alex. How do people get in touch with you, sir?

Alex Abbott: 24:07

yeah, well, smart salt dot com. Great website to go. There's beginning. and then myself, I'm happy to engage with anybody who'd like to talk more. Alex at smart salt dot com. that would be great. And, Also available on LinkedIn, I'm trying to chase after my LinkedIn mentor, Corey here and improve on that platform, but easy to find on that platform as well. But yeah, we are excited to continue to engage in as many conversations as we

Cory Connors: 24:33

can. Well, thank you so much, Alex, and thank you for sponsoring this podcast. We really appreciate your partnership, and thank you both for a great show.

Alex Abbott: 24:43

Thank you, Cory. Thank you, Valency, I appreciate your time. Thanks, Cory. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.