Founder Mark Majkrzak RAIN water Are Aluminum Bottles The Solution To Sustainable Bottled Water?

https://www.simplyrainwater.co/
Would you prefer an aluminum to PET water bottles?
Can we make packaging more circular with aluminum?
Did you know they make 1 million plastic bottles every minute of every day?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-majkrzak-41991321/

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Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:34

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors . I'm very excited to introduce my guests, Mark , Majkrzak , who is the founder and CEO at rain water company. Hey mark. How's it going

Mark Majkrzak: 0:44

today? Really good, Cory. Thanks for having us on. We're excited to be here and to talk a bit about sustainability and some of the alternatives.

Cory Connors: 0:54

You guys have a really cool product, a very unique packaging design. And I'm very excited to get into that today, but I'd like to hear a little bit about your background. How did you get into the bottled water business?

Mark Majkrzak: 1:08

Yeah, I I never thought I'd be in the bottled water business. I studied mechanical engineering and maths when I went to school and I thought I'd worked for some high tech. Robotics company that did some crazy innovative Pang. And here I am the bottled water industry about as simple as it gets, but I've, I've had. A pretty fun career. Right when I left school, I went to work for a very large Japanese automation company. And I did a lot for them traveled to Japan regularly. I traveled the United States regularly and a predominant focus area for me was large high-speed commercial bottling. And very often weekly really I'd be in a new. Packaging facility, bottling facility, you know, that was owned and operated by some of the largest bottlers in north America globally. And when you're in one of these facilities, that's bottling 1500, 1800, 2000 bottles a minute. And it's one of 50 or one of 40 that, that certain corporation owns in the United States. You you gain an appreciation for the plastic problems that I think most consumers don't really recognize. I think very often we see images of bottles floating, floating in the ocean, and we know about the great Pacific garbage patch and the size and scale of it. When these bottles are moving so fast that your eye can't even register that there was a bottle there in the neck, then a new one has replaced it. It's it's it's it really becomes intimate to you. You know, and so that was kind of the, the early stages of, Hey, let's think about some other material. From there I went to work for a company called Packsize a sustainable packaging company that makes a piece of equipment that generates right sized on demand, corrugated boxes. That's a great company. Absolutely. And they, they have a really novel solution that I think works for so many industries. And we've all gotten an Amazon box with some widget that's oversized 2, 3, 4, 10 X, the size of the package. You know, and that's an operational challenge and without equipment, you, it's very difficult for someone like Amazon to have a box unique for every package, every item they sell millions, truly millions of skews. And so what, you know what I did Packsize I think really reinforced that these businesses are looking for. Sustainable solutions. Right? Many of them have a metric in place that says by 2025, we're going to cut our carbon emissions by 33%, by 2030, we're going to be plastic free. And you know, of course there's a cost savings to a right size corrugated box. You know, it's, it's in the way of freight it's in a way of coordinated reduction. The consumer experience is better, but oftentimes the value prop to the customer was actually sustainability. Right? We are helping you achieve your own sustainability initiatives, right? And it proved to me that, you know, even businesses, large businesses are looking to implement these changes and it sort of gave me the confidence to then go out and, and start reign kind of this, this project that I've been dreaming up in my head for years prior. You know, and so now you're right.

Cory Connors: 4:12

That's an amazing thing that you've started. And you know, the, the exciting part about it for me is of course the packaging. Can you tell us about your company and what makes it unique?

Mark Majkrzak: 4:23

Yeah, absolutely. So rain is a plastic-free. Aluminum bottled spring water company, a sweet bottle, single source product from an ultra sustainable source here in north Georgia in all of them in packaging. And so that's an aluminum bottle. It's aluminum cap, it's got aluminum threads. And we put it into a six sided corrugated box that doesn't use any bag, maybe a plastic packaging. You know, we're, we like to believe that every bottle of. Is one less in the landfill, one less, that's going to be incinerated or one less than a waterway or sadly the ocean, which is kind of the highest disability and case for a plastic bottle. There's a million plastic bottles you use every minute of every day. And again, I think that's a number. If you really slow down and think about it, it's like, whoa, this is a lot of plastic. And they're recycled about 9%. Right? So if, if, if we can have an option, this is a more sustainable option that we think has a Postlight that's going to be turned into something else. For us, it's kind of like a, why not right. If we can price this similar to, to a traditional pet bottle, if the convenience is the same, it gets cold. If it's portable, if I can screw the cat, you know, then it's sort of like a, why not conversation? Why not choose aluminum over plastic? You know, and, and for us, you know, that that's been received well by the market. We've done. Double and triple digit growth month over month for the last 12 months. Congratulations, staying on that trajectory. Thank you. Thank you.

Cory Connors: 5:50

That's amazing. The recent announcement by the ball corporation of there, or I should say that the recent introduction of their aluminum. To replace the, the, the red cup that everybody's so fond of in college days, if you will. I think

Mark Majkrzak: 6:10

I, that,

Cory Connors: 6:11

yes, I bet this I think you're getting a lot more exposure for aluminum and hopefully this is helpful.

Mark Majkrzak: 6:19

It is you know, aluminum as an alternative is successful when consumers understand it. Right. I think that there are really big marketing budgets, bigger than ours, that, you know, have educated a consumer in a certain way that says if they take their plastic bottle and put it in the blue bag, it's going to be turned into something right. Unfortunately, you know, we know that that's probably not the truth. So I think all of these brands like ours and especially large companies like mall who makes our bottle helping to provide alternatives that again, ever educate the consumer, that aluminum is a safe, viable, sustainable alternative. I think that's a good thing.

Cory Connors: 7:01

Yeah. So the, the concept here recycling and that you want this I believe I've heard the stat, that aluminum is one of, if not the most recycled or recycle a bowl materials. Is that, is that your understanding as well?

Mark Majkrzak: 7:20

That is my understanding as well. And I'm, I'm glad you bring up recyclable and recycled. Yeah, recycle a bowl equals not recycled. E T P T bottles are recyclable. They won't be recycled. Aluminum of course is also recyclable and it will be recycled. And what we've seen in north America and in many other developed countries is that recycling rates of aluminum are much higher than the next packaging material.

Cory Connors: 7:53

Yes, which is probably corrugated. Maybe, probably, yeah, I think the numbers I've heard from friends are 63% of corrugated it's getting recycled right now, which is actually, which is actually down from about 80 because just the explosion of the DTC packaging. There's just so much, I think the whole system is overwhelmed. Right. But yeah. I agree with you. I love the idea of a aluminum packaging. I love the idea of reusing it. Do you find customers are reusing it over and over again?

Mark Majkrzak: 8:26

We do. We don't uniquely market the bottle as re-usable but we encourage our consumers to reuse it. And we find that they do I will be the first. Standing here owning a bottled water company to say that a reusable bottle is the most sustainable by far. However, oftentimes it's inconvenient or unavailable. You're at the airport, you're at a music venue you're traveling or, you know, disaster relief. We just, we just sent water down to Louisiana. And so in those examples, I think a more sustainable alternative as they did.

Cory Connors: 9:02

Oh, I totally agree. And I saw your post about how you shipped down a truckload already to Louisiana for the hurricane Ida relief. And you've got another one going later this week kudos to you. What an awesome and honorable way to help people in need.

Mark Majkrzak: 9:17

We're we're fortunate to be in a position to help. I think that, you know, we're, we're a young, small, nimble company, and so we can respond very quickly when, when the need is highest. And we're, you know, like I said, we're very fortunate, grateful that we're in a position to do that.

Cory Connors: 9:34

Yeah, this this weather lately has been incredible and all over the place. Yeah.

Mark Majkrzak: 9:42

Yeah. I, I think, you know, regardless your opinion of, of climate change, you know, I think we can all agree. There's been a pattern of more significant more damaging and more powerful weather events. And that trend will likely continue. And you know, it's, it's, it's an unfortunate thing. But you know, there's there's solutions, you know, and even small ones, I think we'll, we'll start to have an impact year over year.

Cory Connors: 10:11

I totally agree. And that's unfortunate, but I think that's on us to, to all make changes and all to make small or large decisions that will affect this in a positive way. Like recycling your aluminum water bottle. Totally what a simple concept and such an easy thing to do. Yeah, infinitely recyclable. Aluminum is, is an incredible muscle. Yeah. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about the difference between, you know, glass as an option. What do you think of that of glass? My, my experience with it is the, the attractor is that it's.

Mark Majkrzak: 10:52

It's it's very heavy. You're exactly correct. Our tans when we bring them in, we we put 150,000 cans on an inbound truck on a 53 foot trailer. I think that truck is carrying something. Six or 7,000 pounds on the inbound side. Right. Which is the over the road limit is 44,000 pounds. So we're well, well, south of that, and that includes a few thousand pounds of returnable dunnage, right? There's pallets and slip sheets that are cans ship with that we send back to be reused which makes it extremely lightweight compared to glass. Glass is infinitely recyclable. The same way that aluminum is infinitely recyclable. The problem is, and glass weight is certainly one of them. I think portability convenience is another one, right? We're not going to take glass to the beach where I can take it to the ball. And there are certain areas where glass isn't a realistic alternative. The other challenge. And, and this is really kind of back to the recycling challenge is that recycling and recyclers are for-profit businesses, right? They're in the business of collecting goods from your curbside doing a lot of work to get them sorted and claimed and washed, and then sent to some mill. That's going to grind it up and smelt it. Process it or do whatever they need to do to turn into feed stock. It's a very expensive process. And glass is glass and pet are very affordable to make from crude materials or from Virgin materials. Excuse me. Aluminum is more expensive to make from Virgin materials. And so there's a huge incentive for recyclers to collect aluminum. And there's a huge incentive for consumers, right? We can, we can go take our cans and get paid for them. Yes. And, and we're, we can be very confident that they're going to be turned into something else. The recyclers have this gross oversupply. You mentioned corrugated did it, right? There's this just mountain of over supply of recycled materials, mainly glass, paper, and plastic. And when it's cheaper to make them from Virgin, the economics become very difficult. And so the circular idea of how do we create and make this circular becomes pretty difficult, right? It's not that the biggest bottlers don't want to use sustainable alternatives. They're really just as interested as we are, but it's an economic issue.

Cory Connors: 13:16

Exactly. And like you said, there's nothing sustainable about going out of business. We need to have these recycling businesses be sustainable themselves. And you know, for Joe and Jill consumer, make it very easy for them to recycle Everything, in my opinion, I that's the goal in the, in the end of this whole thing, I, I think make, make fewer types of packaging and make them the ones that we make very recyclable. I wanted to talk to you about extended producer responsibility. Are you seeing any effects with, from that yet? Have you, have you discussed that with your team? Is that something that you're familiar.

Mark Majkrzak: 13:58

I'm not, what's the term

Cory Connors: 14:00

extended producer responsibility. So basically what they're doing is. Manufacturers of packaging and large users of packaging, like the Coca-Cola's, the Unilever's these big brands who coincidentally, those two brands are totally on board with this idea. They're telling them to make their packaging out of high PCR. Content. And they're telling them that eventually they will be required to make packaging that is recyclable. So you're in the right spot. You shouldn't be concerned, you should be excited about this because your product is the definition of both of those. But I think that it will be more and more difficult to make you know, Virgin pet bottles or you know, what we're already seeing is Coca-Cola is buying up all of the RPET material for their packaging, which is great. And it, and it will make people I'm hoping it will make people more likely to want to recycle and it will make recyclers more. Interested in buying recycled material. So this, these things will turn it all into circular economy like we will. Yeah,

Mark Majkrzak: 15:15

I think so. You know, I, I, I think plastic, as you know, PET as a material is is a very good material. It is highly effective and it's unbelievable how entrenched it is with our lives, modern life. Wouldn't exist the way they exist without plastics. And it's so functional and so affordable and so convenient, we can do all these neat things with it. But in less, like you described, we're, we're creating a system that takes that single use plastic and recovers it in some sustainable means. We're going to have it. It's it's, it's almost like it's so good that it's bad, right? It's because we use it for everything, but that, that creates.

Cory Connors: 16:01

A friend of mine runs a pet recycling facility in South Africa. And he was one of my guests earlier on the podcast. And he said that they, the manufacturers of the 80 bottles went too far in the lightweighting and it made it so nobody, none of the recyclers want it. Bottle. It was too, it was too thin. It was too light. It wasn't worth collecting. So they've, he said that the companies are coming back to reality and they are making bottles that are desirable again. So that's a good step. And I never thought of that. Like, you don't want it to like because like you said, it's a for-profit business. The recyclers don't want. Where's it going to go.

Mark Majkrzak: 16:48

Yeah. And that, that lightweighting that's gone on. I think, you know, again, I think it was well-intentioned right. They said let's just use less plastic. I think everyone says great, less plastic. I'm still selling 16 ounces of water. Ask the gram weight of plastic, love that idea and the consequences, unfortunately like you just described and it's, I mean, it's unbelievable how lightweight they've gotten. They're like a water balloon, you know, and we've found now I think it's three quarters of a term. I was actually speaking with one of our cap vendors that described that some are looking to a half a turn of cab, you know, and it's like how, you know, how lightweight candidates.

Cory Connors: 18:00

Oh, they're actually making the neck shorter. So the threads aren't oh my goodness. I didn't even think they're going all the way that far.

Mark Majkrzak: 18:10

Yeah. If you can think of the lightest weight one you've used and how little you turn it, how short that cap height is, right. It's three quarters of a turn, I think today. And there's, there's an idea of half a turn to ever reduce the height of the capitalist, the volume of flats.

Cory Connors: 18:28

Like you said, the concept is, I think the intentions are positive. The concept is positive, but in fruition it becomes very difficult to recover. And that's a problem. So what do we do with that? Are you, are you, are you thinking that recycling will be more available in the future?

Mark Majkrzak: 18:50

I hope so. I think, you know, we need to continue to invest in recycling programs, you know, and there are other countries like Japan, for example, who has a very progressive recycling system, depending on the state or country you're in with within Japan, they have five to nine bins for the recycling for the recycled products, right. They have a steel, they have a glass, they have a paper, they record data. They have an aluminum. Pet, you know, and so on. And what that does is it removes so much of the burden and the cost with, with the recycling process upfront. And I think consumers generally are, are prepared to opt in to these sort of systems. Right? I think there's going to be outliers that don't want to recycle and you know, and that's fine if we don't convince them, we don't convince them. But but you know, I can tell you if, if, if my municipality said, mark, we're giving you seven bucks. Great. I'm ready for him, right? Because I think when, when when we think about the cost, it really takes to recycle something we'd described it earlier, but there's so many touches. It goes from my bin to a big truck, to a transfer station or sorting center. There's oftentimes humans, they're sorting the items. They have to be washed. They have to be sent that we ground, and it's just this, this tremendous process. And so instead if I can remove. 50% event on the front end by putting a little bit more load on the consumer. I think that that helps us improve the recycling system and profitability of the recyclers. Otherwise they need, I mean, we've got to have the business recycle. They can't go to Fung because otherwise we're going to have a bigger problem.

Cory Connors: 20:29

Very good point. Yeah, absolutely. Is your, do your bottles have a deposit on them?

Mark Majkrzak: 20:36

They do for the states, for the states that opt in you know, and that's just five to 10 cents. Go ahead. Is

Cory Connors: 20:41

it just the 10 states that are, are opted in is there's nothing in addition to

Mark Majkrzak: 20:47

no, there's not. And you know, we, we would love we've, we've talked as, as a business about a returnable system, right? Kind of. Honestly before I was born you know, I, I know of returnable systems like the milkman that used to come to your door and you'd put your in your glass bottles out. You know, I think it's, if you can successfully and economically make that happen and create a return system, I think that's awesome. Mexico still Mexico still uses a return system and they've consolidated their beer companies within two or three formats. And they wash off a label, they spin on a new one and it goes to Corona and then it goes to Modelo and they send you a case of it and you get a case back and it's because they're, they've created a system for it. I, I think that currently our economy doesn't have, or isn't built on that. Uniformity you know, and we would need to trend towards that. You know, every beer company wants is unique glass bottle. Every can company wants it to look unique and there's so many formats available that a returnable system currently would be very

Cory Connors: 21:56

difficult. Yeah, we have something like that in Oregon called bottle drop and it's four glass bottles and it's, it's working very well. They're trying to replicate it in California. I could see that in, it takes a very thick glass. So it has to stay, has to stay local. Like you mentioned, you know, that's the detractor there is it's heavier. But if it gets reused a hundred times, that's a more sustainable life cycle. So, and they're doing it in Europe, like you said with milk, milk bottles and beer bottles and other beverage. I always think beer, you know, that I'm a beer lover, but there are many other beverages I should say, beverage bottles. I should get used to that. Right. But I agree with you. Yeah. We're we're headed that way and we're headed away from the very light, very, very single use. It's got about taste in people's mouth. They're upset by it. They're doing something about it. There's companies like Ridwell , have you heard of them or Recyclops that are absolutely redefining the way we recycle things. And I think those companies are amazing and. Very well change, you know, the way things are done, you take Uber drivers or people who just have a spare hour and say, okay, go pick up a hundred bags of recycling from your neighbors and bring it to us. And then we'll actually recycle it. What a great concept.

Mark Majkrzak: 23:26

Love it. And I think, you know, there's also in there's, there's also companies looking to sell their products in formats that are conducive like, like a bulk, you know, bulk grains and bulk shampoos and bolt soaps. And, you know, there's, there's so many of these solutions coming out. And, and it's really on the smaller guys. We've seen to innovate that stuff, which is great. And, you know, and we're happy to do it because I think it needs to happen. And, and maybe if we can get enough opt-in from the, this stuff. In, in a way that someone like us is going to take, it's going to take a long time.

Cory Connors: 24:10

Absolutely. I fully agree. You guys are innovative and it takes, it takes really amazing people like you and your team to open the eyes of, of the other big companies and hopefully they'll start following your lead. So. Not too soon though. Right? You want to get the market first?

Mark Majkrzak: 24:32

It's a big market billion dollar market, bottled water. So we, we believe there's room for innovation everywhere. You know, if, if Coca Cola started bottling, you know, everything and eliminated tomorrow, that would of course have a big impact on your limited market, but it would help because it would reeducate the consumer that aluminum is the right thing.

Cory Connors: 24:54

Right. So what's next for you guys? Do you have any new form in, in mind you is there a 32 ounce coming? Is there what's next?

Mark Majkrzak: 25:03

Yeah. There are some bigger formats on the way. Unfortunately we're limited to the availability from the can producers for as large as we can go. Right now that's a 25 ounce and that's going to be out pretty soon. Yeah. And then we're, we're talking closely with, with Ball to see what can be done. I mean, they're, for example, they're, they're making it. Beverage cans now on their aerosol lives. Hairsprays and, and spray paints and things like that. And so they know, you know, once ball and Ardagh that are big, can producers recognize that consumers and businesses want larger formats? I think we're going to start to see those things, you know, certainly start to happen. I mean, I, I want, I want to sell a one gallon aluminum jug. You put in your fridge. We're not there yet, but they will be.

Cory Connors: 25:52

I love that idea, actually like a mini keg. Who was that? That sold those a Heineken. Yeah, Coors yeah. Yep. Great idea. Yeah. Why not have a water jug? That's brilliant. I support you when you, when you I'll be your first customer. I

Mark Majkrzak: 26:06

love it. I love it. We'll let you know.

Cory Connors: 26:09

Thank you so much, mark. How do we get ahold of you and you're in your bed?

Mark Majkrzak: 26:14

Yeah, you can find our websites www.simplyrainwater.co , and next CEO. You could see us on Instagram at simply rainwater. You can send us an email, hello@simplyrainwater.co or if you're ever in Northeast Georgia and you want to stop by the plants. Our door's always open. We, we aim. Extremely transparent company. And literally anytime someone walks up, we're going to give them a tour because we, we believe in asking where your food comes from and having transparency in supply chain. So, you know, again, if someone's in Georgia and they want to come see us, we'd love that. Oh,

Cory Connors: 26:53

that's amazing. I would love to do that to her. And I'd like to thank our sponsor Landsberg ORORA for their continued support. Thank you so much for that. And we'll be back soon with another episode, please rate this episode and tell your friends about sustainable packaging with Cory Connors thank you again, mark.

Mark Majkrzak: 27:11

Thanks, Corey. Appreciate it.