Revolutionizing Reusable Packaging with CEO Loic Vandermeeren

In this episode, Cory Connors welcomes Loïc Vandermeeren, founder and CEO of KWiiD, to discuss the innovative reusable box system reshaping sustainable packaging. Loïc shares how his background in IT and pharma, combined with a desire to reduce waste, inspired him to develop collapsible reusable packaging made from a fabric exterior and a replaceable corrugated insert. He explains how KWiiD boxes provide speed, durability, and cost efficiency while dramatically extending the life of corrugated materials. Loïc describes the 14‑iteration design journey, feedback from early partners like Decathlon, and how closed‑loop systems such as click‑and‑collect and locker‑based logistics help maximize return rates and reduce environmental impact. The conversation also covers customization, operational savings, and the positive reception of KWiiD’s products at the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Loïc’s shift from IT/pharma to sustainable packaging and his motivation to address waste
• The inspiration for KWiiD during a visit to a recycling center
• How KWiiD’s collapsible box works and the benefits of fabric protection with a replaceable corrugated insert
• Challenges with traditional reusable packaging and how KWiiD extends box life up to 100 cycles
• Customer use cases including Decathlon’s successful closed‑loop implementation
• The importance of internal logistics, click‑and‑collect, and locker systems for reliable returns
• The 14‑iteration design process and real‑world feedback during development
• Branding and customization options for the fabric exterior
• Cost savings, the subscription model, and benefits of avoiding capex for customers
• Experiences at the Sustainable Packaging Summit and the value of industry collaboration
• What’s ahead for KWiiD and expected growth in 2026

Resources Mentioned:

KWiiD reusable packaging system
Sustainable Packaging Summit (Utrecht)
KWiiD LinkedIn

Contact:

Listeners can reach Loïc and the KWiiD team through the contact form at kwiid.com or by connecting on LinkedIn to view demos and case studies.

Loïc: LinkedIn

KWiiD: LinkedIn

Closing Thoughts:

Cory and Loïc highlight the importance of innovation, collaboration, and action in driving sustainability in packaging. Loïc encourages anyone with an idea to take the first step, emphasizing that meaningful impact only happens when ideas move from discussion to execution. KWiiD’s story demonstrates how practical, scalable solutions can significantly reduce waste and support a more sustainable future.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

Connect with Cory

Connect with Cory on LinkedIn here:
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

0:07

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Corey Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Corey Connors. Today's episode, I connected with founder and CEO, Loic van der Muren from Quid. We discussed their reusable boxes and how they're having great success in closed loop systems. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, SpecRite, and Lorac CPI. We couldn't do this show without them. Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors. I'm so excited to have Mr. Loic van der Meeren, the founder and CEO of KWiiD We got to meet in Utrecht, Holland, which was beautiful at the Sustainable Packaging Summit. What an incredible event. It's good to see you again, sir. Welcome. Hello and good morning, good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you very for having me today. Yeah, where were you based or? I'm based in Switzerland. Originally I'm from Belgium, but the company is based and I am based in Switzerland. So hello to every European based colleagues. I do a lot of uh these with people in Europe and they always choose that first slot right in the morning for my time because it's their afternoon. So I totally appreciate that. And uh so that's why I make that time available. But it was great to meet you. I was really impressed with your booth and your products and uh all the ideas and the concepts. made a video together that went a little bit viral and a lot of people were interested in it. But You have uh a very unique background, including highly educated, really incredible PhDs and all kinds of things, mostly IT and pharma. Can you tell us what made you pivot to such a unique packaging idea? Yes, of course. Actually, I had some challenges in my professional life a few years ago and I wanted to have an impact on the planet. And I think we all have, you know, kind of a mission to make this planet as good as possible. And I wanted to go the extra mile and see how can I help, you know, my peers and also the next generation to have a better place. And for me, waste was actually a very important topic. So one day I was just going to the recycling park. with the kids and I realized that all of us are coming with a lot of carboards, know, from online commerce, online purchases and say, hey, maybe we can do a better job there. So I was looking a bit in the space and then realized that there are many, many options in terms of reusable packaging, in terms of bottles, in terms of bags, but in terms of boxes, there are a bit less. And actually I think it was lacking something which was very fast and efficient. but also price competitive and end of life. wanted something which is also very much recyclable with a very little impact at the end of life. So we wanted to have something at the end, which was very fast, very convenient for the people, cheap, um so competitive from a pricing perspective. Because nowadays when you go to companies and say, hey, you want to be greener? Of course, yes, we all want to be green, but it will cost you 50 % more than people say, maybe a bit later. So that's the challenge we wanted to tackle with. with the Quid innovation. So I start building boxes on my living room with a Swiss knife and some ways that I could collect it from that same recycling center. then after many iterations, we ended up with the product you presented on the video that went viral and that we recorded together at the Sustainable Packaging Summit. And that's how the story started. It's just by visiting the recycling park and say, I would like to have a better implacable. different impact on the planet and help the future generations. So that's how the story started. Well done. I've long thought that corrugated should be used many times before recycled. And uh I think what you're doing is exactly that, encouraging that and facilitating that through a very unique system. What is QUID and how does it work? Can you show us the sample? Can you show us the concept? Yeah, of course. So as you can see here, the box is collapsed. So it's very thin and light because based on corrugated cardboard and when you build the box in a few seconds, it creates a box like this. So it's a bit difficult because of the setup to show a demo live, but you can go on LinkedIn or on our website. There are some demos there where you can see how it opened and collapsed. And yeah, the beauty of it is that it's made of two materials. One is the outside. And then there is an insert made of corrugated cardboard. And that cardboard is not glued, not stitched, nothing to the outside, meaning that at the end of life, this insert can just be replaced by a new one. So what is today disposable after one cycle, you just throw it away and create waste. Now you can use it two times, three times, 10 times, 100 times. And when the cardboard is damaged, you just take it over. You generate the same waste, but after 100 cycles and not only one. And then you go again for the same time. that's... We basically made disposable boxes reusable thanks to the collapsible design. So you have something which is very thin and light to store and easy to ship back or return, but it's doing exactly the same protection and the same role when it's as a box. So that's the unique, I think, value proposition that we offer at Quid. It's the speed together with this collapsible thing while we keep the waste exactly the same, but not on one cycle, but... up to 100 cycles. love that the insert is corrugated and that it's reusable but then also eventually recyclable as it wears. And I'd like to talk a little bit more about what the outside material is made out of so we can explain that to the audience. So it's just a fabric, um which is designed in a way that it can welcome the insert. And on the side, you have this patented system of closure that keep the box in a collapse position or in a closed position, keeping the cover on the box and re-closed. And this fabric is also water resistant, even waterproof. So it also creates some additional protection for wear and elements during the use of the box. So it's really, I would say, upgrade the box in term of resistance. And that's also what allows the cardboard to be reusable, not only a few times because the customer we are discussing with, those who can do it from an operation perspective, but also open to the danger or what's happening on the planet for the moment. They try to reuse their boxes, but they face different challenges. If you put a sticker on, want My background is away. I'm back, but the background went away. think the platform is not managing, but it's the green background is also fine. Let's, let's like, so what I was telling you is that the customer that we are working with or discussing with the, some of them are trying to reuse their disposable box just to extend a bit more and reduce the waste. So maybe two, three, sometimes four or five times. they face different challenges because when you put the label or you put some tape to close the box, when you open the box and you have some residue or you damage the cardboard and therefore the shelf life by default because of those manipulation decrease dramatically and the maximum we have seen is five to six times maximum the reuse of the box. And with this protection, the fabric that we put around, we are basically protecting the cardboard from all those labels and tape manipulation and damages. and therefore we extend dramatically the shelf life of the cardboard. It could be used dozens and dozens of times, mean, potentially hundreds if handled correctly, uh Absolutely. One of our customers is Decathlon. We work with them in Switzerland and they use it for the internal logistics. And the beauty of it is that they master the logistics and they optimize it very well, meaning that they can do with one box in a time window of one month. They can do many cycles with one single box. So where today, you're doing one month, you can do I don't know, let's say seven or eight cycles, you will need eight packages, right? You will need eight boxes. And today with their optimization, they can lose only one quit boxes. And therefore the reusability is making sense, making absolutely sense. And they are mastering also the logistics, meaning that they put the box in some conveyors and at the reception, it's also their stuff manipulating the box. So they are quite careful with the box. and they can go up to 100 cycles without replacing the inserts. So it's really helping them managing the waste. It's also helping us and it's fantastic example of what we can do with reusable packaging today and how impactful it can be for the companies in terms of savings, direct cost of the packaging, but also operation costs because it's faster and you don't have the waste to manage at the end of shelf life. It's much better from a visibility on the customer at the reception side and also we don't have the... to dispose the waste at the end. that's, that's very, everyone is winning. That's a huge win. exactly. A hundred times. That's incredible. Work in process is a perfect start for this project. think that makes it, that's what we call it, work in process, where companies are shipping items internally to be only to be broken down. The corrugated just needs to be broken down and then sent back to whichever building it came from. That makes perfect sense for these. And I think a lot of times people have used plastic in the past. for something like that, which can be fine. But I really like this idea because I think it's uh unique and I think it's gonna be a really long-term solution to this issue of sustainability for packaging. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit more about the design process. Without a background in packaging, you've come up with something that's incredibly user-friendly. easy to do, sets up really fast. How long did it take you and how did you come up with it? Thank you for the feedback. It's actually a fun story. So I introduced it a bit earlier. So we started with this idea that we wanted to create something which is very fast. And then we want it also to be collapsible because the idea of being reusable is that you need to return it. And this return process needs to be as easy as possible. And therefore, the space you take on the return process is very important. And then we create the first iteration. I'm very convinced that today you can learn almost. Everything, anything, everything is available in one source or another, especially in the digital world. So I was looking online, connecting with potential customer, asking them, Hey, what is your challenges today? If have this idea, what do you think? And then one of them was the head of logistics in Decathlon. provide us fantastic feedback and then we work with this team and then many iterations after the other, I should have prepared some of the first prototype. They are far away from the one we have now. And it's very funny because We started with a zipper, you know, and this zipper is working. It works fantastic well, but it's very cumbersome. So that was one of the first feedback we get, hey, zipper, works well. But you know, when you want to scale up and have some speed and you do, I don't know, 100 on 150 preparation a day, you know, having to put this zipper, the male part into the female part and just zip it, it takes five seconds. But when you multiply five by 100, you're losing hours at the end of the day. So we wanted something which was very efficient. after many, many iterations, think in total we have 14 iterations, we ended up with something where the customer said, hey, we want to try this. This looks good to us. So let's give it a try. So we manufacture those prototypes, several hundred of them, tested in some specific logistic channel. It was working fantastic. The feedback we got from the user were amazing, really mind blowing. We needed to adjust a little bit like every product. But all together, I think it was It was really good. And just a fun fact, I was also doing some shopping in the center of Switzerland last week and I was just passing by one of the store and say, oh, let's have a look. So I went into the store and I was saying, hey, I'm the founder of that company. By any chance do you have any boxes in the store for the moment? Yeah, sure. Yeah, welcome. Nice to meet you. And we went in that specific location where they just store the click and collect orders for the... for the customers and there were, I don't know, 20, 25 of them waiting for the customer to come and pick up their order for Christmas. And then it was such a pleasure for me to see the product in real life. And I was asking the guy, hey, what do you think about this product? And he say, it's unbelievable. It's fast and efficient. We love them. It's so easy. So he had a big smile on his face and it made me very, very happy. that's, know, fun story. So after 14 iterations, then, a years later, you see your product life and customer happy about it. It's just, yeah. It seems to be a cool story. actually is, but it tells me that, you know, if you have a dream, if you want to achieve something, just, just there to take action. I think that's the only way, you know, good ideas, you know, good conversation. It can create the sparks, but until you really put that into action and in the physical world, it will actually not happen. So I really encourage anyone to, if you have ideas, just, just go for it and try it. Worst case you have a failure and you will learn something out of it, but just discussing or thinking about something is actually not enough to make an impact. Exactly. Well said. I forgot to ask you, where did the name come from? It's a very interesting word. Quid. What is it? Does it stand for something? it? it's actually done. So I had a different project before starting this venture. And I bought a domain name called Quid. And because we are reusing, was thinking, hey, we are doing reusable packaging. And I have this domain name that I don't use. Should I just reuse the domain name as well? And so I used the domain name that I had. And now it's a brand. So it's super cool. I love that recycled, reused, well done exactly how it should be. That's perfect. So I think, I think people are wondering how the return rates are for the boxes. And I know internal use like work in process, you're going to get very high rates, probably near a hundred percent. When it goes out into the wild, like you said, you've visited a store and those are going to customers. How often are they returning those? And are you Are you getting good data on that yet? So it's a very good question. And I think that's the challenge of reusable packaging today. At the moment, it goes out of the brand control. It's really difficult to have a high return rate. So you can have fantastic tracking system with QR code, unique ID, text messages that you can send as a reminder, subscription, deposit, whatever. You will never reach the 100%. There is unfortunately kind of a lack of conscience from... or a company or society, sorry. And I think it's difficult. So what we decided at Quit today is that we focus only on closed loops, internal logistics and stuff like that. So the box do not go to the end customer. So that's why we focus today on, for example, e-commerce click and collect. So when the customer go at the point of collection, it takes the content of the box, only the order and the box collapse automatically and return back. We can even go one step further when they have those lockers. There are those 24-7 um cut board or lockers where you can put your order in and then you can pass when you have time with the, you just scan the QR code or you type code on this little lockers and you take your order in. So when you do so, the brand or the people um loading them, they just put the content of the order in this locker. And therefore the box can immediately collapse and return because the, The idea of a reusable packaging, has to be in use and a waiting packaging is basically useless, right? Or it's a pity that we have a boxes or a bottle which is waiting for its next refill. So it should move as much as possible. And when you use those lockers, the order is arriving. You take the content of that order, put that in the locker and the box can collapse immediately and return. It doesn't have to wait for the customer to come to be reused again. So we are even accelerating this reuse frequency, and that's exactly how it should be. So brains which are implementing those lockers, they save, of course, on the manpower because you don't have to deal with the customer when he's coming. For the customer, it's flexibility because they can come anytime. And for the reusable and the waste, it's much better because things can move faster than it could without the locker. So I think that that's also really cool. What a great idea. That's exactly right. And if it doesn't get to the consumer, then you don't have to worry about it being returned. That makes sense. Are you, are you considering or have you been asked to use other colors for the material rather than a brown? Yeah, very good question. So the reason we ended up with that color is because it's very natural. But we can, of course, customize the packaging. So it's a fabric. So we can print. We can add labels. We can add logos. We can change the color of the fabric itself. So anything is possible. Of course, we need a certain amount to be able to make it uh financially viable. But any customization is actually possible. So branding is actually not an issue. Yeah, that's a, that's a exciting. And I think the return on investment is probably what after five or six uses it's, uh, you've paid for itself and then it's, you know, Yeah, it's a good point. So of course, because of this business model, we need to pay for the box and it's a bit more expensive than the classical disposable box. And therefore you need to use it several times before it pays off. And actually it does actually very quickly and companies are doing savings immediately because we provide boxes for a fee. And therefore after we do contract of several years, depending minimum is one year. And therefore the company is doing savings on all the customers are doing saving after the first month already. So it's very convenient for them because they don't have to invest. So there is no capex needed on their side. Usually CFO really likes it because it's a stable invoice that comes every month. And the supply chain team really likes it because they have to, they have less worry about resupply, you know, especially at the Christmas peak and stuff like that. How many should I order this time for the next semester? And you don't need to care about that because you have a constant inventory. or at least the variation as much smaller than before because you have this return rate. it's, yeah, I think everyone is really saving in terms of energy and waste. It's working very well. Congratulations, it sounds like it's taken off and doing all the things you wanted to do. I did want to talk to you about the Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht. Can you tell us about that and how your experience was having a stand there? So we are a Swiss based company and still very young and we wanted to get exposure to a broader market. So that's why we went to the Netherlands to have a booth there and get in contact with key opinion leaders and expert and also potential customers. I think it was a very good experience. The quality of the event was very high, the quality of the speeches and the dialogue we had there was amazing. From a networking perspective, it was amazing. I think I would not have met you, for example. There are some others which I met there, also with our colleagues. And for us, it was really worth it in terms of time and money-wise. um think we all came to work together to impact the planet in a positive way. And I think the only way to do it today is just to be collaborative. So I really appreciate it from a professional perspective, but also human-wise, think that's also a... um super nice and really a rich experience to be able to connect with other peers, which are basically, you know, sometimes they don't have exactly the same thought as you. that's very perfect because it challenge you in a, in a good way, but it's also a way to get visibility and take ideas and impact the world faster and quicker. So I think that's yeah, the packaging summit for me, the sustainable packaging summit for us was a very great experience. That's excellent. Same here. Incredible event. Best year yet. New location this year. And because they've grown so much, they had to move to a larger facility and they just moved to town over from Amsterdam to Utrecht. What a beautiful place. Can't wait to go back next year. What's next for you? Any big events coming up? Anything new that you can tell us about? I'm looking forward to the break. We are almost at Christmas time. So I'm looking forward to relax a little bit. think 26 will be a fantastic year for Quid. We have opened many doors in 25 and I'm looking forward to see the fruits of those in 26 in terms of sustainability, but also in terms of branding, which are looking to innovative solutions. So I think that will be a good moment for you. There is a momentum that we want to play. And yeah, I think it's would be amazing. Exactly. I agree. How do people get in touch with you to buy some of these? You just go on the website. So it's quitkwiid.com. You have a contact form there and you can send us an email or a message. And then, yeah, just look at LinkedIn. We have some videos there, some demos, the video we recorded together in the Netherlands, but there are also some others and some business case there. So I think today with social media, just type in QUIT and you will find it quite easily. That's right. Well said. Thanks, Loic. Really appreciate your time and your wisdom. We'll put a link to your website in the show notes. So if you're listening, just scroll up and click on the link and connect with Loic and his team. So thank you again, sir, for being on. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. a good day, everyone.