Meals waste and meals packaging take up a good portion of the world’s landfills. AlterPacks is tackling each points with expertise that turns meals waste into takeout containers and different containers. The Singapore-based startup has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by Plug and Play APAC and Seed Capital, with participation from Earth Enterprise Capital and angel investor Alice Foo.
The brand new funding shall be used for AlterPacks’ commercialization, together with manufacturing and provide, in markets like Asia, Australia and Europe.
Based in 2019 to deal with single-use plastics, AlterPacks’ foremost uncooked materials are spent grains, a by-product of producing meals like beer. Spent grains are normally used for animal feed, fertilizer or disposed of. Via its manufacturing course of, AlterPacks turns spent grains into meals containers that may be molded into completely different shapes, are freezer and microwave-friendly and residential compostable.
Founder and CEO Karen Cheah informed TechCrunch that she grew to become curious about growing alternate options to disposable containers when she was touring and noticed communities scuffling with the quantity of plastic containers and meals waste thrown away. AlterPacks makes use of spent grains as a result of they’re simply accessible.
AlterPacks founders Steven Tan, Karen Cheah and Herbin Chia
“The properties of spent grains and the amount of grains accessible globally have been two key elements,” she mentioned. “By upcycling the grains, we’re creating new financial worth and placing what would have been a by-product disposed as animal feed, or headed to landfills and compost, again into the availability chain as meals containers that can be utilized to interchange plastic disposables.”
Cheah defined that the method of changing spent grains into AlterPacks’ meals containers is just like paper pulp manufacturing. AlterPacks can manufacture containers at scale with automated machines that clear uncooked supplies, combine its formulation after which press it into completely different shapes of containers.
AlterPacks’ containers have been accessible commercially since December. Its go-to-market technique is a B2B mannequin and contains working with distribution companions that promote provides to F&B companies like eating places and accommodations. AlterPacks containers have been available on the market since December. The startup can also be within the strategy of growing bio-pellets as a alternative for petroleum-based resins use in manufacturing machines. They’re made out of spent grains, and different agricultural waste like coconut shells.
In an announcement about Plug and Play APAC’s funding, managing associate Jupe Tan mentioned, “We bought to know AlterPacks whereas sourcing for related startups for the Alliance to Finish Plastic Waste Innovation Program they usually have gained vital curiosity from the members of the Alliance, which is of course a sign for us to do additional due diligence for investments. We’re glad that we managed to faucet into our partnership with SEEDS Capital to co-lead and put money into our very first sustainability startup in APAC and we hope this would be the first of many different sustainability investments with SEEDS Capital.”
