Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging
Join industry leaders, innovators, and changemakers as we explore the future of packaging through the lens of sustainability. Hosted by Cory Connors, an industry expert with over 25 years of experience, and presented by Atlantic Packaging, the leader in innovative sustainable solutions, we dive into what’s working (and what’s not) from cutting-edge materials to circular design strategies that can reduce waste and protect our planet.
Each episode blends real data, expert insights, and a dose of fun to help you stay informed and inspired. Whether you're in the packaging industry or simply passionate about sustainability, this podcast is your weekly go-to resource for making smarter, greener choices.
Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging
From Banana Farm Waste to Award-Winning Paper with Bethelhem Dejene
•Cory Connors •Season 6•Episode 417
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In this episode, Cory Connors welcomes Bethelhem Dejene to discuss her journey from observing waste at an Ethiopian fruit and vegetable market to founding Zafree Papers, an award-winning startup manufacturing tree-free virgin pulp from banana farm waste. Bethelhem shares how she iterated through multiple business models before discovering the potential of banana fiber, how Zafree partners with converters to supply sustainable packaging materials, and what it meant to become the first African company to win the Sustainable Packaging Summit Innovation Challenge.
Key Topics Discussed:
Bethelhem's origin story and how a visit to a fruit and vegetable market sparked a waste management business
The evolution from paper recycling to manufacturing virgin pulp from banana farm waste
How Zafree sources banana stems and leaves after harvest and extracts fiber to produce pulp
The types of packaging products the pulp can be converted into, including corrugated, folding carton, duplex, and molded packaging
Zafree's partnership model with converters and customers such as AB InBev
Winning two awards at the Sustainable Packaging Summit Innovation Challenge as the first African company to compete at that level
Plans to have a booth at the upcoming Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht
The potential to scale the banana fiber model across Africa and other banana-producing regions
Scaling from a pilot factory to a commercial facility targeting 100 tons per day capacity
Zafree's active Series A fundraising round
Advice for sustainable packaging founders: align cost, quality, and impact or the business will not scale
Listeners interested in working with Zafree Papers or learning more about their Series A fundraising round can reach out to Bethelhem Dejene via LinkedIn.
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.
Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with Bethelhem Abebe the founder and CEO of Zafree Papers. They are an award-winning startup making paper from non-tree fibers in Ethiopia. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, Specright and Lorax EPI We couldn't do this show without them. Welcome to Sustainable Packaging. I'm so excited for today's guest, Bethelhem Abebe And she's from Ethiopia. She's the CEO and founder of Zafree Papers. How are you, Bethelhem? Great, Cory. How are you? Thank you so much for making time. We've been trying to get this together for a while and I'm so excited to finally have you on. So let's talk about you. Let's talk about your background. What got you into sustainable packaging materials? uh It's a long story, but I'll try to keep it very, short. So it all started with... So I visited this fruits and vegetable market with my mom when I was a freshman student. It's one of the largest in Ethiopia. And my expectation and what I actually found was completely different. A lot of uh rotten fruits, vegetables all over the place. um I ended up thinking I should clean this place up. So it all started as a West management project. um But through the process, um I iterated in multiple businesses like plastic packaging, other West packaging, and then landed into basically paper, where I used to do recycling at the beginning, um just paper recycling. West paper and then you convert that into a paper but the quality was really bad and that it had its own problems so I end up you know trying to discover more where I end up you know making paper out of banana farm waste basically so yeah. That's incredible. Well, that was my next question. uh What is Zafree and if the paper isn't made from paper pulp, what's it made out of? Can you talk us through that process? uh um So well, as I mentioned, uh it's a tree free pulp and paper company. Zafree is basically manufacturing virgin pulp that is a direct your material to paper and different packaging products uh in the paper industry. So we're directly sourcing banana farm waste like the stem uh after the banana is harvested. Usually the stem and the leaves are chopped down either to condition the soil or because it's really uh found in bulk, they have to discard it or burn it. So we decided to collect that after identifying that issue, of course, we decided to collect that and extract the fiber and of course make the pulp and the rest of the products. So, yeah, that's what Zafree is making at the moment. about this idea, such a great concept. Are you producing this material in Ethiopia? Can you tell us a little bit about the business climate there? Yes, it's based in Ethiopia. The operation is based in Ethiopia where most of the banana farm is located. More than 80 % of the banana farm is located in one area. um So that's where we're located at the moment. uh well, the business uh in Ethiopia specifically for companies like us uh is not as... As huge, mean, well, the country is promoting a lot of these things, but when it comes to the actual customers, still not a big focus. The focus is either price or quality. But yeah, that's also where we decided to work on as well. So maybe I'll unpack more on that on your other questions if there's any. That sounds great. Yes. uh Could this concept be expanded to other parts of the world? Do they, where other banana tree farms are? Absolutely, this is something that can definitely be implemented in other countries, especially African countries. have uh massive banana farms uh and similar problems actually. uh like virgin pulp is not as big, especially in Africa. So it still remains a problem. And at the same time, course, sustainability is also not as big anywhere, especially in the specific industry. So, yeah, definitely it's something that can be implemented across. That makes sense. And that's exciting that it can be expanded because it's such a great concept, think, using waste material for new production of new packaging is awesome, in my opinion. uh Congratulations uh on your two awards for the Sustainable Packaging Summit. This is where I heard about you and your incredible company. You cleaned up. You got two big awards there. Can you talk to us about that and how that felt and how that has helped your business? Well, that was a great moment for our company because it's really a big validation for entirely what we've been trying to achieve so far as a company, because it's specifically about the product that we've made, how we achieved it, the impacts that we've made. So yeah, it's really a big validation for us, especially being the first one from Africa. uh to ever win this challenge and also to actually compete with one of the giants actually is something for Zafree. It's a big validation. I wish I was there in person, but of course my representative Farida was there. She really represented us very well. But yeah, like it was one of the, I think the best moments for our company. Yeah, those awards aren't easy to come by. so congrats. That's a really big deal. We plan to go this year to the uh Sustainable Packaging Summit in Utrecht. Well, I believe so. I believe so because, yeah, at least we need to know. you know. Well, as a winner, do you think you'll get maybe have a booth there? Is that something that you're interested in? Yeah, so definitely something we're considering. having, I think we received an early email from the team as well. We were also trying to get a booth from the last uh event as well, but it was last minute so we couldn't arrange anything. But yeah, for sure, this year we're planning to do the booths as well. Great. I look forward to meeting you in person. That'll be good. It's a wonderful event and it's a beautiful place and I was really impressed with it last year, so I can't wait for this year. So what types of packaging will you make from this uh material using Banana Tree Waste? So at the moment what we did is corrugated uh boxes, corrugated trays, you know, related stuff. But we mainly specialize on the virgin pulp and we partner up with converters. So we're not directly manufacturing the paper or the packaging products. What we do is because, you know, we have clients like ABMbiv that are really interested to uh shift into the sustainable materials. We bring the converters in the middle and we partner up. So the pub can actually be converted into any type of, whether it's duplex packaging, folding carton packaging or uh corrugated, it's possible, or even molded, it's possible, whatever you wish to make. Yeah. That's incredible to hear that AB InBev is one of your customers. They sure are a leader in the sustainable packaging space. So that's good to hear and not a surprise that they're interested in what you're making. That's really great. Yeah, for sure. They're very active in this whole sustainable packaging side of things. So yeah, it's very interesting. not easy to do what you're doing and I commend you for it. uh Well done and good job for your team. Do you have any tips for somebody starting up a new business in the sustainable packaging industry? I think people would be interested to hear your wisdom. Well, I think I guess I'll definitely call it a wisdom. We learned this. We learned this definitely through, you know, a lot of experiments in terms of the product, the market and everything. And obviously, one big thing that we learned is uh we cannot win the market. unless we have the cost, impact and quality aligned. Like for example, the quality might be good if the cost is 10 times, nobody's going to buy it. Therefore, we cannot really make any change. um And of course, it should come with the impact basically. unless a sustainable, any company that is in this space, in the sustainable space is trying to achieve these three things, then For sure, it's not gonna work. It's just gonna be one cool product that we're gonna show off. that would be, I think, what I would advise. Just keep your focus on achieving all three. Otherwise, it's not gonna work. Yeah. exactly right. I see it all the time. I see, I have people on the show. They talk about, well, our product is 10 times the cost, but we're, finding our niche still. And, uh, it's so, it's, it's tough to, to kind of scale up and reduce your costs while, you know, you're, you, you, when you're starting out, your costs are so high and your, your sell prices so much that people are, are turned away from it. But You're exactly right. You have to think about being able to scale. Yeah. One of your fellow founders and CEOs, Julia Marsh from Sway said the same thing. She, from the beginning, they said they wanted to be able to scale this and make it huge so that they could bring the cost down. Otherwise it's just not going to work and it's not going to have the kind of impact that you're excited about. Exactly, 100 percent, I agree. So what's next for you? You got any other plants coming on board? You got any, just focusing on uh converting the waste into pulp for now? um So we are at the moment scaling the factory from a pilot factory to an actual factory. um Of course, so at a very early stage, but fundraising for it, you know, and doing all the pre-operational activities in advance. So, you know, we can be in multiple markets. And of course, if you don't do it at scale, it's not profitable. Also, you cannot lower the cost down for the market as well. So for a couple of reasons, we have to scale uh bigger. So we're targeting at uh 100 ton per day capacity for now. well, given the kind of customers we're dealing with, it's very small. But it will be uh somewhere to start for sure. So that's where we're at. So we're also fundraising at the moment our series A for this same purpose. uh Yeah, so that will be the next uh thing you would, I think, hear from Zafree. exciting news. didn't realize you were doing a fundraising round. Hopefully we can get the word out here on the podcast about that and help you spread the message. So how do people get in touch with you Bethelhem? They can get in touch with my email or whatsapp number. ah Would you like me to say the number out loud or? only if you're comfortable with that or we can put it in the show notes for you, whatever you prefer. Or you can just... Okay, yeah. to the targeted people. Yeah. All right. We'll make sure that happens for you. If uh our team, our marketing team will put that down there. uh Anything else we didn't talk about that you wanted to mention about your business or about just packaging in general. um I'm not sure if there's anything missing, but in general, uh anybody who would like to work with us, we're very happy to welcome. They can go through our LinkedIn as well, especially my profile. They can go through my LinkedIn and see the journey and also contact me on LinkedIn or WhatsApp or email. So yeah, that would be pretty much it. Great. Well, thank you so much. It's been great to hear from you and congratulations again on all your awards and your success. I see great things in your future. Thank you very much, Cory. Thanks for having me.
