Flexi-Hex 100% paper packaging / Sam Boex

https://www.flexi-hex.com/sustainability/
2 pallets of Flexi-Hex equals the same space as 10 pallets of bubble wrap 
How to replace styrofoam with a sustainable paper packaging alternative
2 million sold already! 
sales@flexi-hex.com 

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Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:34

Welcome to sustainable packaging with Cory Connors . I'm very excited about this guest, Mr. Sam, Boex , who is the co-founder of Flexi-Hex . This is a brand new product. That's I'm so excited about welcome Sam. How are you, sir? Oh, great. Thank you for taking some time. Like I said, this is a very innovative product. It's a very new product. Can you tell us a little bit about who invented it and when it was invented and all of that?

Sam Boex: 1:04

Yeah, sure. So, so Flexi-Hex has been around for yeah, a couple of years, basically we develop the product back in 2018, both myself and my twin brother. We have a kind of we have been in the design industry for probably 15 years running a product and interior design agency. And we're also both avid surfers. And I've been surfing for over 13 years and the product, I suppose, the seed and the embryo of the actual product was off the back of a core experience, buying stuff online. Having sort of this, this box arriving when you opened up this box, just seeing the thing, the stuff was just covered in reams and reams and reams of bubble wrap, and just, I just kind of felt that must be kind of like a, sort of a get better consumer experience. It must be ENA for product, which was opposite $800 or and, and of course I will the issue around what, what we're going to do with that bubble wrap. So we kind of, we S we, we basically you know, can we develop a packaging system for surfboards, which is effectively going to create a better consumer experience, but also, but also be more sustainable and made from kind of more sustainable materials. So we had, I mean, I suppose we had. Sort of exciting and kind of like an opportunity. And we realized there weren't many sort of a packaging solutions for circles in the market. So we kind of put our heads together and really started with it as a fresh canvas to think, okay, how Nike do it? And he's like, well, with design training, like, like designers, approach, subjects and projects, they. What would you do? And how, how, how do you, how do you tackle something which hasn't been done before? So we started, you know, looking at materials, which would be appropriate for packaging stuff, or it's an, our focus right at the beginning was, was 100% on, on developing a station of stuff. So we, we looked at, you know, yeah. Hundreds of different materials and we ha we eventually happened upon this material. An existing material called honeycomb paper honeycomb, which is made globally huge scale. And, you know, your, your kind of. Kind of listeners would have seen it in, in as a material to use, to create a solid board for kind of furniture and, you know, things like Ikea furniture or packaging exhibition panels made in doors, but we, we, we, we received some of this, this, this honeycomb core and when we received it, we just. This is a very interesting material. It's super flexible. It sort of reacts in very strange and different ways. It's also a hundred percent paper, you know, is there something we can do to this material that will enable it to kind of like form around surf or let's give this sort of shell like sort of, sort of yeah. Protection to the surf board. And so we, , we sort of, yeah, we started this, this project, which probably lasted, you know around six to eight months , of developing what we now call is the flexi hex sleeve, which is effectively an open-ended sleeve, which, which literally yeah, expands open to reveal. Honey can call when you can. See through the sleeve with, with the, with sort of the shape of the hexagons through it and the sleeve kind of reacted greatly around and packaging, this, this circle product, it just formed eloquently around the shape of the surfboard. And we're kind of, I think from, from when we, you know, we made prototypes using kind of like. So, you know, just literally in the office by tearing out materials, including bits together. And as you say, the first, the first, the first time we put the sleeve over circle was very much a Eureka moment where you sort of like both looked at each other, thought this, this could have real potential in the market and in circle. But also much wider applications as well. But we so yeah, so that's how we probably started the product. Cory Connors: That's an amazing story. I had no idea. And that, that surfing was the impetus for this. This is really cool. That's not very common that you hear a story like that. No, and I think it was so, again, again, because it was a surfboard stuff was, it's so unusual in their shape. They're sort of sort of compound curves, curves going one, one direction and another direction. Because because of the unique nature of the surf board, actually, by putting this sort of work in to develop a product for surfboards, we, we quickly realized that we ultimately developed a hugely kind of versatile product, which could be used in so many other applications. So it was kind of like although incredibly challenging to sort of figure out because obviously surfboards come in different shapes and sizes, but also different lengths. So how do you create one product? And we say, can design the thinking. We knew that this, this, whatever the product looked like had to be sort of a affordable, a kind of like. Super you about that tool set could fit a number of different sort of product shapes and sizes. And also kind of like commercially viable, like, you know, had to be sort of low volume installed easily and things like that. So it sort of, we went as this product suddenly ticked, you know, quite a few of these boxes. Yeah, that's, that's how the product was built.

Cory Connors: 6:40

I think you're you're right. Hitting the nail on the head there with being able to store it. It takes up about what a 10th of the space of bubble wrap or 25th.

Sam Boex: 6:51

Yeah, what's the, what's the fem statistics it's around. It's around sort of. Two pallets of, of flexi hacks, the equivalent of 10 pallets of bubble wrap them from a storage point of view. But also there's, there's this time-saving as well from, with regards to kind of. How quickly you can package. We know, you know, industries, you know, we did lots of research and, you know, work with companies to sort of develop and sort of refine the product as well. And, you know, packaging us up or can take upwards of 10 minutes. And we've, we've taken that down to sort of two or three minutes, you know, using flexi access. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 7:27

Is the surf board sleeve the most popular flexi hex version.

Sam Boex: 7:32

So that's where we started. And that's where we very much were sort of like probably six to eight months of the kind of start of the business journey and the sort of our adventure so far. But and we launched the first sort of pre January, 2018 with surfboards by the end of 2018, we had developed a series of products for the drinks and beverage industry. And again, we tackled it in the same way, looking at, you know, yeah. I supposed to come back one step. We, we, we realized I have potential the products and we wanted to find industries, which, you know, we were getting some really good traction and sales in the software industry, but we also wanted to kind of, I suppose, a product, which we knew we knew had issues the guys to kind of help. Shifts and, and, and it was a fragile product. Say, say fossils in glass, we knew were fragile. We knew we also were getting contacted by my business and they're having issues with us with that, with that glass bottle say so, yeah, we, we developed a series of series of smaller products specifically for. And, and probably spent then the next year refining and developing those bottle products refining it very much into that specific kind of e-commerce space that's creating. So for businesses or fulfillment companies, to be able to use flexi hex kind of products you know, sleeves to send that bottles quickly and efficiently. And to today the drink, the beverage industry is probably around 80, 90% of the revenue of the business. So it's a huge portion of our, of our kind of business. And we've sold now over 2 million over 2 million bottles stays and we're gaining traction re very rapidly for, for, to give you, I suppose understanding of kind of, I suppose, the scale we're going to. The first, first three years of sales for the bottle products, we sold over a million slaves. And then just in the last three months, we've sold another million. So yeah, we're now over 2 million. Yeah. Scaling is scaling quite quickly and, you know, talking to some big.

Cory Connors: 9:43

Well, congratulations. It's such an innovative product. And I think that's how we connected was I did some Tik TOK videos where I would drop your packaging from different Heights and it survived all the way up to six feet, which was amazing. And that I think, I think if I started with some new, fresh boxes, it would probably even go home. But I dropped the same box over and over again. So my question to you is do you recommend reusing Flexi-Hex

Sam Boex: 10:14

yeah, we a really good question is the question we get to all the time. Ultimately some paper products and it's made with water-based glue. So it's it, it does have a dove, it does have a lifespan and it eventually you have, like you found out we've watched those videos. So that's brilliant. With, if, if we, if we package it also with a fresh new sleep, we can, we can confidently chocolate and we've got videos online. So the 4.5 meters. Directly on the concrete, just in the sleeve itself and it survives, but you'll see that you'll see the slave. It kind of, you know, it has taken the impact and that's what will happen with it within a box. Having said that we've got companies who, who use our sleeves to sort of like resend products or consumers, if they need to send bottles back they'll, they'll reuse the slaves equally in the board sports industry. Kind of promotes and, and in that if you receive a survey. In flexi hex, then you could potentially use those sleeves to say, go on a to use it with, with an insider kind of a board bag, if you're going on holiday, or if you want to do return the board or send it on something else. So we kind of encourage people to kind of like strip back sleeves and put them back into their original state and store them for any other product really. And it's, you know, it's a, it's a much lower volume than say another cardboard box. So you can, you can store them kind of anywhere.

Cory Connors: 11:44

Oh, another great point. Yeah. Reuse it. Use it for travel. What a great idea. I didn't even think about traveling with a surf board. That's gotta be a challenge.

Sam Boex: 11:56

Well, it, it's a huge, it's a huge industry issue. I may actually pick that we actually sort of have quite a of sales off that again, the product is designed for packaging. But it does work, I guess you've made to be in a, you know, if you, you know, if you've got your one trip, you know, sort of, but you've saved up all year for you surf trip.. You want to get it there in one piece then? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a great addition to the board bag as well, to make sure your board arrives on one piece.

Cory Connors: 12:21

That's an awesome, awesome thought this would you say this product usually replaces polystyrene or styrofoam?

Sam Boex: 12:30

Yeah, I would say it's, it's a replacement for it. Polystyrene and also bubble wrap that those are probably are kind of like from a, from a, from a plastics point of view, what we're looking to replace it's it's yeah, EPS polystyrene, you know, obviously pre molded kind of like components which go into boxes. We w we kind of like compete with that and obviously, They, they provide a huge amount level of protection, but they are obviously set to a certain size and a certain box configuration. Whereas I suppose the USP of our product and unique, unique kind of like selling points of flexi hex is, is, is that best in flexibility in that it can be sort of like you can be use multiple different skews in different box sizes. So yeah, I'd say polystyrene and bubble wrap and the two sort of like direct replacements.

Cory Connors: 13:23

I'd be interested to do that. Comparison you did for bubble wrap with polystyrene single use or single bottle shipper. That would be interesting to see how much space that, that you guys would save, going to Flexi-Hex. Just, just this space alone, just

Sam Boex: 13:43

It's, it's a, it's a really interesting one. We got in PBA sort of again, I suppose an example with you, obviously you have kind of EPS kind of fitments for boxes, but you also have kind of molded paper, pulp, fitments for bottles as well, which are, which are a great viable alternative, but there's also volumetric issues. With that and storing that product, we, we flexing ex kind of slaves are, you could say. I think, yeah, I think a quarter of the volume of, of, of being molded pulp and an EPS is solution. So it's a huge saving, especially, especially obviously from a warehouse and points of view, but also if that getting manufactured elsewhere, you know, shipping prices are very high at the moment. So, so it's a, it's a, it's a big advantage to be able to obviously kind of maximize firstly from a sustainability point of view, but also. From a, from a price point of view, APR to maximize the amount of product you get into containers. And we can yeah. And gets, I think we can get around 180,000 bottles leaves into one container around around seven, 7,211 pallets. So yeah, it's great. It's a, it's a Bible product to move around globally.

Cory Connors: 15:30

That's amazing. I did want to talk to you about your rewilding project. I've I looked on your website and saw that you guys are involved with a project called the rewilding project. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Sam Boex: 15:43

Yeah, we, we, we went with a company called earth and It they're, they're, they're a great kind of organization and they work with again, organizations within, within the UK and also Ireland around kind of rewilding. And also we forest thing, obviously, you know parts of the UK and and Ireland, you know, obviously , there is a UK used to be kind of 80% you know, Woodland basically. And as you know, as a nation. So, so that obviously there's a huge amounts of. Yeah, land and especially in Ireland as well around again, and, and also sort of a push to, to rewild and so we're supporting them where we can on that same sort of obviously helps with regards to kind of offsetting our carbon as well from the manufacturing of the product. So, yeah, it's a good partnership.

Cory Connors: 16:32

So they're actually planting trees and or, or peat Moss or something like that in, in,

Sam Boex: 16:38

yeah, exactly. Yeah. Planting, planting, native, native trees. You kind of, yeah. On, on large, large areas of land to effectively rewild those spaces in terms of agricultural land.

Cory Connors: 16:53

What a cool project that you hear a lot about beach cleanups and things like that, which are wonderful, but it seems like a lot of people are doing that. So I thought it was really cool that you guys were doing something different.

Sam Boex: 17:06

Yeah, I think, yeah. I mean, I think this, this, then there's so many areas we want to look at as well as, as an organization, I suppose. How focus was, you know, and I I'm still remains kind of a Marine and sort of Sea focus as well, but, you know, obviously sustainability and, and from an environmental point of view, you know, this is the same thing aspects we want to tackle. And I think next week we'll be also looking at projects, you know, and how we can, you know, regards to kind of Yeah. Sustainability from the Marine environment. Point of view, looking at yeah, cause see things like seaweed and things like that. The huge kind of like carbon stores as well. So.

Cory Connors: 17:45

That's a great point. I I've heard that from quite a few people about seaweed. I think they're talking about almost farming it in really increasing that volume for, for the planet will be, will be great. Yeah,

Sam Boex: 17:59

exactly. I think it's hugely sustained. There's some really interesting kind of companies as well, utilizing CB. You know, like, I think we'll seaweeds in the UK also edible as well. It's kind of like, there's a huge amount of potential in see mates and yeah. Again, a fascinating kind of like industry and kind of like yeah. Thoughts be to, to, to explore and find out how we can support them.

Cory Connors: 18:22

So you guys are. based in England is that right? And currently looking to expand around the world. I know we're in talks Landsberg ORORA is in talks with you guys about possibly distributing in the USA. Is that the kind of the plan to work with other packaging companies around the world and distributors

Sam Boex: 18:44

they're very much it's. We, we. Ultimately, we want to be a kind of like recognized brand within the packaging industry globally. And I know that's a big ask and we, you know, we've got a long way to go, but, but yeah, we, we, we hold the IP on the products globally, and we want to kind of work work with distributors and organizations to be able to kind of make it accessible in, in, in different territories globally. So, you know, working with an a number of disputes in us. And I think we, we, we've got quite a focus on looking at potentially licensing and getting the product manufactured within the U S and potentially Europe as well. So, so we kind of, again, again, it's the next step for us to making it sort of keeping the supply chain simple, you know, improving the sustainability of the, of the product and making sure. You know, we, we stick to all kinds of like yeah, the strong sort of sustainable DNA that, that is running through the business and, and constantly kind of like checking how we, how we can kind of improve, improve that from a production point of view and supply chain, point of view.

Cory Connors: 19:53

I think you guys are like most of us in the packaging industry, you're having trouble keeping up with demand. Is that, is that still the case?

Sam Boex: 20:00

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, very much so, you know, You know, obviously kind of incredibly difficult as it is, you know, with the global pandemic kind of, which is sort of like been going on for, you know, over the last year. And, you know, disrupting and affecting so many businesses and for us we've been incredibly fortunate situation that, that, you know, as has lockdowns kind of happen we, we seen kind of spikes in, in, in growth within the business and demand and the business. You know, as, as lockdowns happened, obviously the demand on e-commerce is it is yeah, because I exaggerated. And so we, we are sort of one of the, one of the, one of obviously a number of businesses, people are going to now to find sort of protective packaging, which is sustainable, which they can send products out in. And I think, you know, to, to capitalize that, to add to that as well, Oh, so you were working in the dream space that there's so many other different kind of markets with Y you know, we have potential in the product as well from, from cosmetics through to electronics, through to furniture. So yeah, some exciting kind of like opportunities. As, as, as you say that the demand is yeah. Super high for the products, it's just making sure we have products available.

Cory Connors: 21:21

And it's you guys are doing packaging for candles and other kinds of things too, is that, are you continuing to expand into new. Territory is there? Yeah,

Sam Boex: 21:32

exactly. Yeah. Like I said, it's sort of, I think, I think that's what my most excited about is, is the potential and different sort of, I suppose, market verticals that flexion can be applied to. So we're working with a number of electronic companies with there's also sort of two product types within, within our business. So we have original kind of flex. You had to product. We also have this product called Flexi-Hex air, which we, which we have a great partnership with a company called Seaman paper who manufacture. So she for it in the U S and they manufacture the flex, the hips for us and distribute and sell that for. And the, the air product is made from tissue paper. It's still a, still a honeycomb sleeve. It's a very lightweight sleeve and again, designed specifically for lighter gifting products and sort of sort of hump or sort of fascinating consumer goods, such as cosmetics to yeah. Electronics to smaller glass objects. Yeah, again, again for that e-commerce space, you know, working in that sort of direct consumer.

Cory Connors: 22:36

That space has really blown up over the last year, like you said, and it's it's an amazing shift in the global way of doing things, the way of buying the way of purchasing you don't go to the store anymore and buy 20 things. You order three things online. So

Sam Boex: 22:53

it's tough to ask. Not you're you're exactly right. And it's sort of, you know, again, we, we we've been the litmus paper to see that sort of change. And you know, the shopfront is now becoming, you know, the box you open up when, when you receive your delivery and the kind of businesses know that. So, you know, that first impression of when you open, open your past love to see, you know, see what that product is. That's, it's fundamental for businesses, they get that kind of right. And that like user experience and you know, that's going to be the direct, you know yeah. Reflection on, on that basis. So we're very much, you know, developing and looking at sort of how we, how we can improve and enhance that consumer experience across a number of different industries

Cory Connors: 23:38

at Landsberg ORORA. We'd like to say it's the And I think that your, your packaging makes a really cool reveal. So well,

Sam Boex: 23:50

Yeah.

Cory Connors: 23:51

Well, thank you so much. What's the best way for us to get ahold of you, Sam.

Sam Boex: 23:56

So so he said the web website is www.Flexi-Hex.com . And yeah, from, from an email point of view, it's just sales@flexi-hex.com. And, and from, from the website, you work in and also the different products. We yeah.

Cory Connors: 24:21

Great. Well, thank you so much again for your time. It's been really cool and great to talk to you. I'd like to thank our sponsor Landsberg ORORA for their continued support. And yeah. Please rate the rate that episode and tell your friends about sustainable packaging with Cory Connors . Thank you so much, Sam.

Sam Boex: 24:38

Nice. Okay.