Luke and Lucy founder Dave Collins (Brodie Vander Dussen and Cory Connors) Scotch™ Cushion Lock™

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How has Scotch Cushion Lock helped this small business be more sustainable?
Why is it such a great space saver?
Did you know customers will be thankful that they don't have to clean up a mess?

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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

0:31

Sponsored by Scotch Cushion Lock.

Cory Connors: 0:34

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors and Brodie Vander Dussen the first of our series of co hosts, I'm very excited to interview our friend, Mr. Dave Collins, who is the founder and CEO of Luke and Lucy, and his products, him and his son, wife have this really awesome company, local company, and they use innovative materials that are sustainable and they use sustainable packaging. They use scotch cushion lock and, craft corrugated boxes and paper tapes and things like that. But welcome everybody to the show. Hey, thanks

Dave Collins: 1:13

for having us.

Cory Connors: 1:15

You're welcome. Thank you, Dave. And, I'd like to start, with your background, Dave. let's talk about that first.

Dave Collins: 1:22

Yeah, sure. so I am an industrial designer. so designing everyday products. mostly I've been designing, consumer electronics, laptops, tablets, VR systems and that, and those sorts, and really, have started to design our own products. My wife and I, my family and I, after really witnessing a need or, a pain point that I hadn't thought of prior. so we make, a. Kids, household bowl and spoon, and the kind of the twist, the unique, nest to it is that it has a channel throughout, before my father passed, he had a stroke and, he couldn't use one side of his body. in the hospital, he was chasing a bowl around with kind of 1 hand trying to finish his meal. So I had to. hold the bowl and lift it for him to finish those last few scoops. we thought that there could be a better solution there and ended up redesigning a bowl that literally has a channel throughout the middle and your food falls in the channel. And then a spoon pairs with that and scoops of all your remaining last few drops. So that's my background.

Cory Connors: 2:30

An amazing, background and perfect for what you're doing now. And, I'd love the impetus of your products. I love that it was, it came from a need for, from your, for your dad and for, kids, that just, want to eat quickly. And it's such a smart design. I believe you patented that design. Is that right?

Dave Collins: 2:51

Yeah, we got a utility patent on that. Yeah, which is just another one of those surprises where you don't think that, these things have been thought of. But yeah, to your point, though, we are seeing like a broader use case, your point in terms of the kids, like people, elderly facilities, or, occupational therapists or kids to your point, learning to scoop. It's a fun way. Less mess. The bowl itself has dimples. The spoons are ergonomically designed for grip for kids and these types of things. yeah, it's a broader context than its original, impetus like you mentioned, but, but yeah, we're having fun doing it. And, so far, so good. It's got some nice design awards too, which is nice.

Cory Connors: 3:33

Congratulations. Wow.

Dave Collins: 3:35

Yeah.

Cory Connors: 3:35

Exciting. So do you want to show us the bowls and the spoons so we can talk through that and what's unique about them?

Dave Collins: 3:44

Yeah, sure. I'll start with kind of a, a regular bowl and spoon and it might be hard to show given the angle. but the kind of the pain point that I was mentioning, I have tic tacs in here and just a regular flat bowl that would sit on the table. you would be chasing around your lights. And then, if we take the same, Tic Tacs, which you probably wouldn't be eating, for breakfast, but they fall directly down in this channel that runs throughout, and then, like I mentioned, the spoon then pairs up. With the channel, once it's flat, it comes up the side and falls on the spoon and there's no need to lift and tilt your bowl. If you did want to, we find a lot of kids that, do want to lift and sip from the channel. It acts as a pouring spout as well. And then around the outside, you may see these dimples, which are sized for finger tips for grip. So there's a few detail design features in there that, like I mentioned with the handle of the spoon with kids that three tend to grab spoons with their right. This is the dexterity needed for the fingertips. yeah, we've really, originally we made a ceramic version here locally in Portland, Oregon. So we have a really nice refined ceramic version. It's very heavy and weighted and a lot of adults tend to like this with a stainless steel spoon. But then, durability and, throwing it in the dishwasher and having it drop. This is a, a bamboo based. Material here that is super strong. driven a car over it and it just how strong it was and it did crack, but it didn't explode. So we're trying to think of fun ways to show this durability of this thing.

Cory Connors: 5:31

Well, we can come up with some ideas for you. that's awesome. My, my kids fight over the, those bowls. you've given me a couple over the years and, they love them. They think they're so fun. And it's just such a great product. And like you said, made out of sustainable materials. so it shows your mission to, to be environmentally conscious and aware. Well done.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 5:54

How is that? the focus on sustainability really helped your company. how has that come about? And, how have you found that's been helpful or not helpful?

Dave Collins: 6:02

Yeah, I think from the get go, we could have, We could have quite easily made the product in a regular plastic material, but, it took a long time to, to balance both the, function and everyday use of it. we can make a, fully compostable one, so you could use this bowl for, as long as you need to use it, but the kind of caveat is that you would have to hand wash it. With kind of the 2nd in line where it's 40 percent we upcycle bamboo. So we use bamboo. That was the, planned to be burned or thrown in landfill. So we take that grind it up and we mix it with a plastic and it, It then can be dishwasher safe and microwave safe, we interviewed about 300 people and said if this was fully compostable, but you only could hand wash it, would you go with that? Oh, would you need the dishwasher in it? It was a kind of a resounding 80 percent plus that would need and require the dishwasher, which I get so. We still have our long term vision and I think customers to your point do appreciate that. Um, the, that we have spent time to research materials that are both earth friendly and, the durable as well. it's that brings added benefits to the actual material itself in terms of the strength. You can use less material because bamboo is so strong. So it's complimented the design to say, we use this really strong material that we're also. saving the use of, of regular plastic.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 7:36

yeah, the reduction, I think, even of just even if you are using plastic, but the reduction of plastic compared to what you could be using, I think, is.

Dave Collins: 7:46

yeah, true. I

Cory Connors: 7:48

hadn't thought of this before, but I wonder if you could do a, recyclable or compostable version at a molded pulp someday, or molded, and the pulp could be bamboo. It could be, wheat straw or whatever the environmentally friendly material. that's a neat idea. Something to think about.

Dave Collins: 8:05

yeah, absolutely. yeah, and we are, if, to your listeners, if we are, we're always looking and researching for that next generation of the material. There's lots of pros and cons to all different options that you might choose. we settled on this as a good starting point. but we're, obviously we want to improve it once, capabilities are there, I'd say, for also mass manufacturing and starting out small too. there are ways you could get, the material you would ideally like to use, but you have to order containers and containers full. So there's, kind of restrictions based on your size too. So yeah, if there's any suggestion like you had in terms of the poll, yeah, please send them our way.

Cory Connors: 8:45

Let's see that for the future. I did want to talk about the packaging that you use. I know that, I can see that in the background use the Scotch cushion lock material instead of, plastic materials and it's, 100 percent recycled material. let's talk about that. how have you found using that and, what kind of benefits are you seeing?

Dave Collins: 9:05

Yeah, no. Yeah, that's. That's been a huge help, for us in terms of the packing up and shipping out. we have our little office off the side of our house here where, obviously space is a concern. And when we started with the original ceramic ones, we, to your point, we wanted recycled material for the packaging. We didn't want to straight, go into something that's plastic and. Contradict our message in our whole, what we're chasing after here. But, we originally had crinkle cut, but it was, it came in a giant volume, excuse me. And it would just leave trails and messes all over the place. So once we, once we found this compact role that expands the Scotch cushion lock here, it's really simplified The, yeah, the shipping side of it here and we, like, that we don't need much space. It kind of tucks in the corner there. And, I think we've had this for a couple of months now, and It visually doesn't look like it's gone down much, but we've used it a lot. yeah, so yeah, it's been super helpful, especially with the ceramic one. It really, as it opens up and provides that structure that, yeah, it can roll it up and wrap it up easy. And it's definitely, protected.

Cory Connors: 10:16

The kirigami shape is really a it's an amazing process. I love it.

Dave Collins: 10:21

yeah, I know my son. Also, we have our little print station and our, compostable mail those 2 that we used and he likes to, he likes to help out with the ripping and the tearing and the, yeah, it's a fun process. A fun solution. but yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Brodie

Brodie Vander Dussen: 10:39

I was gonna say, I think that the, even the customer experience of the unboxing, I think of the cushion lock, I think is. Really impressive when comparing to bubble wrap or even plastic options. I think it speaks to a more sustainable vibe or, aesthetic that contributes to your brand. I see lots of like earth tone colors that you guys use too. I think it, it looks visually very cohesive too. Have you gotten any like feedback from customers when it comes to the cushion lock or from your packaging?

Dave Collins: 11:08

previously We did. And I think that was part of the switch too, because of what you mentioned. It's a, we've never used the bubble unless we, in the very beginning, we used if we got packages here, we'd recycle that and use it. And then once we got the crinkle, we would use that. But, to your point, pulling out a bowl and all this. stuff kind of falling everywhere, was, we sent to friends and family and a lot of that, those comments back were, yeah, once we got our product out, we had to clear up our kitchen. And so solution to your point, it matches a brand. Our retail packaging too, is a recycled card stock too. So It just all fits together. And yeah, the retail packaging is the exact same, color and recycled. And, yeah, so it matches the brand. And to your point are the bamboo. Once you add it with the resin here, it. It creates more of a, an earth tone by itself. So it, this is more of a white, close to white color. But once you mix it with so much bamboo, it becomes more of a natural oatmeal. So yeah, so it does, it matches really well. It tucks away in the corner and, yeah. And so far, so good. I think also sometimes no comments or is a good, no feedback is a good feedback too. I also

Brodie Vander Dussen: 12:27

wonder too if the cushion lock like to your maybe target audience as people with less dexterity or just preferred less dexterity that the cushion lock being easier to unwrap, rather than like the crinkle when you have to use your fingertips so much. I wonder if that's part of, helpful for your target audience too.

Dave Collins: 12:48

yeah, I think you're right. I think it's. It's just simple, like you said, simple to roll up and wrap and then simple to unwind, or even to tear, I think,

Brodie Vander Dussen: 12:58

To clean up, to dispose of,

Dave Collins: 13:00

almost locks together sometimes too, even if you do tear them separately apart, you can almost dab one onto the other and that helps for easy cleanup.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 13:09

Yeah. I

Dave Collins: 13:10

think I still find some of the crinkle from the year.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 13:14

It's like glitter. Can't get rid of it.

Cory Connors: 13:16

And from a recycling standpoint, the crinkle cut material is not always. Able to be recycled through a Murph and a lot of people don't know that it will fall through the screens and we'll end up on the floor because it's too small. Whereas the Scotch cushion lock, it sticks together. Even if you tear it apart, it's still a ball of paper that can go through the process and get sorted with paper and be recycled and reused again.

Dave Collins: 13:46

Yeah. And, in terms of volume, I find I don't use too much of it. I. I, especially for these little ones, I tend to separate the bowls with a ball of cushion lock in between the bowls so they don't bang in transit. And then I'll just wrap up a spoon and not worry much. And then similarly, it doesn't, it only takes, for the ceramic version, it only takes a few rolls in one direction and continue to roll in a different direction and It's got a good couple inches of protection and what feels like no time and not much material. That's great

Cory Connors: 14:20

where do we buy these things Dave? Where do we because I think customers are starting to get excited about it.

Dave Collins: 14:25

Yeah, the our website is Luke and Lucy comm You'll see a few videos of side by sides from traditional household bowls to this solution yeah, LukeandLucy. com and then LukeandLucypdx is our handle for Instagram and TikTok. We're just starting out on TikTok, so any likes or comments or those types of things are much appreciated. Yeah, we sell them as a set, a bowl and a spoon together.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 14:53

Do you have any advice for other small businesses when it comes to their packaging?

Dave Collins: 14:57

I feel like, obviously what I had done in terms of reaching out to Kari and, and just, asking advice, Corey got me off in the right direction very quickly and, for retail packaging and for all of the types of solutions. I think just reaching out to other small business owners that are have known what have has worked and has not worked. I live locally next to a glass blower and, I've got him hooked onto the exact same solution that we use because he ships his handmade glass all over the country and, obviously that's a fragile thing and he lives in a small apartment and it's space saving and all the rest. I think just, yeah, asking around locally, I found our retail packaging locally and, Corey has helped me find a lot of great. Eco friendly solutions. Um, like I said, it took a year to find the material. and I think. It's sometimes those things take a while, but, it's better than shaking, at least I feel more comfortable taking the time and making sure it's right and feeling good about all the packaging solution through material solution than it does Just quickly going out and buying a whatever quick bubble wrap solution that I don't that contradicts the brand or trying to go. yeah,

Cory Connors: 16:19

it seems like that's that's the go to oftentimes for people. It's the easy. Oh, well, we know this will work. plastic bubble is commonly used and I think it's. Probably because they don't know about scratch cushion lock and they don't know that there's a recycled and recyclable and reusable option. yeah, you're exactly right. it's the easy way, but this, I think this is the easy way that people don't know about. So that's our job to tell them about it.

Dave Collins: 16:48

Yeah, even with Bubblewrap too, space saving, I don't, I'd say that's the biggest, yeah, even if I had the quick, cheap solution, I would have a stack of a roll of Bubblewrap here and, yeah, yeah, so it's got benefit way beyond the kind of quick and convenience side of it, yeah.

Cory Connors: 17:12

Anything that we didn't ask that you wish we would have?

Dave Collins: 17:15

no, not really. I think, yeah, I was hoping to come on here and share kind of my story, but also, like I mentioned, if, your listeners and viewers have, solutions out there that I might not have, I've heard of in terms of material, we are working on a pet version, pet product, but we're also just looking to. Improve accessibility. it doesn't solve everything this product so far. We hope to expand the line and just gather feedback. It's really helpful when you get to the end of your meal, but, there's, it doesn't solve, it's not a solution for everyone, but it's fun. It's less mess. It's durable. and aesthetically, I feel like it stands out and it looks quite unique and the colors are nice and the, Definitely

Brodie Vander Dussen: 17:55

something that I'd like be proud to have on my counter to offer a guest or anything like that. It's very nice.

Dave Collins: 18:01

Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate that.

Cory Connors: 18:03

Well said. Brody, anything else you wanted to talk about before we sign off?

Brodie Vander Dussen: 18:09

I don't think so. I'm excited to, as you're sharing your story of where you came from, I had at least three people that came to mind of like, oh, they would love this or this would be really great. So I'm excited to send links and share about this product. Cause I think it's, really important.

Dave Collins: 18:24

Thank you. Appreciate

Cory Connors: 18:25

that. I think it's a great, that's a great point, Brody, is this a good gift idea for maybe somebody that, you aren't sure what to get them, somebody that's difficult to buy for, they could use some new, really unique, bowls and spoons, from Luke and Lucy. I think that's a great idea. Holidays are coming.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 18:45

Don't remind me. Don't remind me. I've got time. I've got time.

Cory Connors: 18:49

Well, now we know what to buy.

Brodie Vander Dussen: 18:50

yeah,

Cory Connors: 18:51

thank you. Dave. We appreciate your wisdom and your insights and keep up the good sustainable work.

Dave Collins: 18:56

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.