Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
The podcast from Lyreco that explores the Future of Work, from Lyreco's innovation team.
Each episode we talk to a pioneer of the future of work, exploring the themes and trends that will shape the workplaces of tomorrow.
Pioneers Podcast by Lyreco
From Panda to Paper: How Cheeky Panda Disrupted a Mature Market
Chris Forbes, co-founder of Cheeky Panda, shares the journey of building a sustainable toilet paper brand that uses bamboo instead of trees to create products that are better for the planet and for people.
• Bamboo regenerates from its roots unlike trees, preserving ecosystems and biodiversity
• Bamboo tissue produces 65% less carbon emissions than tree-based alternatives
• Younger generations (under 50s) are driving market change through values-based purchasing
• One poll found 60% of office workers rate their workplace toilet paper as "not good" or "terrible"
• Cheeky Panda became B Corp certified before it was widely recognized, building sustainability into their foundation
• The brand has expanded from toilet tissue to approximately 30 products including kitchen towels, facial tissues, wet wipes, and period products
• 25% of people have skin conditions that can be irritated by chemical-treated toilet paper
If you'd like to learn more about Cheeky Panda products or their sustainability journey, visit their website or look for their branded dispensers launching in March.
Welcome to the Pioneers podcast by Lyrico.
Marc Curtis:I'm Marc Curtis. Each edition we're talking to pioneers in their own fields. We're talking to business leaders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, keynote speakers basically anybody who's got something interesting to say about the workplace and is pioneering the way we think about the future of work.
Marc Curtis:This is a conversation I recorded with Chris Forbes, one of the co-founders of Cheeky Panda, which is a brand that has really pioneered the use of bamboo as a raw material for toilet paper initially, but a whole range of other products as well. Really fascinating company, and I've talked to Chris about their sustainability journey, how he came up with the idea, why they're doing it and why B Corp is so important to them as a company. So great conversation, really interesting, and I'm very grateful to Chris for spending the time to speak to me about it. So I'm joined um in chris's home by chris forbes, uh, the co-founder of she, and thank you very much for inviting me into your house. Um, and sorry for springing on you as well.
Marc Curtis:A bit of a surprise, yeah, I thought we were talking about it rather than actually doing the podcast. Absolutely, that's. That's what I like to do. I like to surprise people into not knowing when they're going to be doing podcasts, so, um. So I really wanted to talk to you about your company, cheeky panda. Um, for a number of reasons really. Firstly, it's it's a it's a different take, or an innovative take on on a on a product that that everybody uses, so everybody has an opinion on it. Um, you've, it's answering a very specific need, but it's also solving some other challenges as well. Um, so, first of all, tell me a little bit about what is cheeky panda, what you know, where it came from, how long you've been doing it and and you know what exactly are we talking about. What is what is the cheeky panda mission and product?
Chris Forbes:so cheeky panda. Um, the idea was to make tissue from bamboo and that's why we decided to go with the pandas, because pandas are associated with bamboo. And it was my wife, julie your girlfriend at the time idea and she came to me with this idea in 2015 and said let's make tissue from bamboo. And I said why would you do that? Because I wasn't familiar that you could make tissue with bamboo. And she went it's the world's fastest growing plant. I went why would you do that? Because I wasn't familiar that you could make tissue with bamboo. And she went it's the world's fastest growing plant. And I went that's interesting. Is it any good? And she went yeah, it's really good, it's really soft, it's really silky smooth.
Chris Forbes:I went well, we've been using some low-grade recycled tissue at the time, so I said let's get some in and try it. Absolutely loved it, for it was the best tissue toilet tissue I'd ever used and I thought, okay, well, you know there might be a gap in the market here. So, um, we explored the idea of um you know, creating a brand and you know, julie sort of done the designs and we decided to test on crowdfunder um, which is, uh, sort of our rewards based um investment platform and we basically offered people to pre-purchase the toilet tissue at 40 pound times. I said, if you know, if we get to 10 000 pound we'll go for it, and if we don't, then we won't. And um for about three weeks we'd got to 12 000 and we went. Okay, I guess we've got a business here.
Marc Curtis:So so you basically crowdfunded a toilet paper company.
Chris Forbes:It's, yeah, and the really interesting thing was because we use crowdfunder and they've got a really strong link into Amazon, so then that put us on the Amazon innovation platform, right. So that automatically got us into kind of like an early vendor account, which is a very hard thing to get within Amazon, sure, and then that's kind of where people were sort of looking for. I don't think they've got it anymore, but that's where people were looking for innovation at the time, and then we would be able to pre-sell it to people, because we said, listen, if people want to buy it without trying it, imagine what was going to happen when they actually get their hands on this. So, like lot of businesses, when they start, then they don't start with revenue, they start with an idea. And then what we did is we actually, you know, by the time we actually got the product to market, we already had customers and we started to sell through.
Marc Curtis:So and it's- incredible and, and you know, kind of instinctively as well, you wouldn't necessarily approach a market which is, you know, definitely a well-established market and think there's room for a new product in there. Why? Why specifically? I mean, you talk about the quality of it and presumably there's a sustainability angle as well what was your primary sort of driver to? To try and get into what it's, as I'd imagine is, a pretty crowded market?
Chris Forbes:uh, yeah, I mean the thing is, is, um, we live in a planet of stretched resources, right, if you've got the fastest growing plant, why are we not using it? Right, and and that was a sort of question I asked why hadn't the big companies that are existing in paper not using bamboo? Um? And it's because they've got vertically and they create supply chains. They've been doing the last thing for the same hundred years. They don't see anything wrong with cutting down trees if you've been top executive there and for 30 years you've been doing the same thing, the same way. You don't want to change, so, and and they probably wouldn't even see it as a category that's worth looking at because it's not bigoted there was no one doing it. So, um, you know it's. Sometimes it requires people that are disruptors to to create a market, and we were the first people in europe to create bamboo tissue um and bring it to market, and now there's a few other, so you've got some imitators now, yeah, we've got a few and it's flattery if other people can kind of sort of think well, you know, everybody puts their own sort of twist of lemon on their story.
Chris Forbes:But you know, essentially we were the original people and what we did is we started off with toilet tissue and then people said to us can you do kitchen towel right, absolutely. Can you do facial tissue absolutely? And you know we had a lot of people come to us through the years and sort of say he did his part. So now we've got a portfolio of around a bit of factory products and that kind of covers household, baby beauty and now sanitary products as well, which I believe we're listing with Lyrical Okay, so that's period products as well on the list, and obviously I can hear your son in the house as well, since we've invaded your home.
Marc Curtis:I mean, do you think that to some extent your experience of going into parenthood has sort of made you more aware of some of the other you know unsustainable or less sustainable? You know kind of products that people invariably need when they're bringing up children or running a household?
Chris Forbes:Your best feedback is your customers Right, right, and you know we have a lot of. You know we didn't have our wet wipes when leo was born, um, and then within sort of four months we had wet wipes, um and um. You could see the difference in terms of there was no irritation in the skin, um, it didn't dry out in the pack, so you've got less wastage, um. And then you start to read the reviews, what other people are saying, and they're saying exactly the same thing and they're saying, like you know, like a lot of people use our baby wipes on their pets as well, because the eyes, because the, the pet's eyes, get a little bit of um sort of build up on ganking and said, like our um wipes cause irritation. We don't get any things like that.
Chris Forbes:So I think you know, know that you've kind of got like products where people just constantly give you really, really good feedback. You know that can kind of sort of iterate and you know change into slightly different variations of essentially the same thing. When we've been asked if we would do clothing, it's not in our wheelhouse. I think our sort of wheelhouse is very much into the hygiene market, if it market, if it's disposable, whether it's something that you throw away. Yeah, okay. Well, it's. You know it is waste, but if you make out of the world's fastest growing plant, it's, it's pretty decent waste and and there's numbers.
Marc Curtis:I think I had a quick look at your website before I came, but I think did I read it was uh, 65 percent less carbon emissions than yeah, than fashio paper?
Chris Forbes:yeah, it is, and like um one of the things that you don't realize about, um treebased tissue, right?
Marc Curtis:So if you're cutting down, it's seen as a renewable crop there, right.
Chris Forbes:Yeah, well, if you're cutting down a forest right and I do quite a lot of work with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and they do work with the pine forests for the Pine Hoverfly, which is a project that we support, and I said well, when you cut down a forest of a biodiverse forest and just replace it with just pine, you create an ecodesit Sure Right, so there's no animals living in it.
Chris Forbes:You need natural range of plants and trees in order to be able to create that sort of vibrant ecosystem. Now, with bamboo, bamboo it's a grass, so when you cut down a piece of bamboo, it regrows from the room, so you don't destroy the ecosystem. So when you clear, cut a forest, everything's gone, right, all the all the habitat's gone, all the species are gone, but all you're doing is taking the pull out of bamboo. You just retain that natural living forest and I think that's, for me, probably the most wonderful things about you know, bamboo not just being the world's fastest growing plant, but you really protect that natural capital as well, and presumably it's been grown in an area where it's native to the area it's growing in.
Marc Curtis:Yeah you're not, you're not replanting, you know.
Chris Forbes:Because that quite a city, you know, draining the marshes, planting a massive, loving a tree, it's, it's a massive issue in portugal with eucalyptus trees.
Chris Forbes:Oh, yeah, yeah, because they pull a lot of water out of, so they pull a lot of water and then they become very bristle. So the the amount of right. So they've created real soil problems, um, and they've created lots of wildfires. You know, I was going to say because they burn like hell, because they burn like once they become dry and they're bristly and then they go right. So, oh, yeah, we've got these trees that take 12 years to grow and it's like, well, yeah, but you actually created a complete nightmare for the ecosystem.
Chris Forbes:So, you know, portugal is actually trying to get rid of it because, you know, it's now seen as more of a problem than a solution. So, you know, I think people say that we, you know, we plant a tree for every. You know we plant three trees for every tree we cut down. Well, the maths don't make sense, right, if you're cutting down. If they were planting 12 trees for every tree, they were, then actually do you know what that kind of makes sense? Because that sort of seems the right ratio where you can kind of grow a tree but you know the amount of land that you have to use to be able to produce the same you can with bamboo.
Chris Forbes:I mean, just, bamboo is just a super plant, is it the only way I can describe it? It's kind of like you know, if you've got one of those dumb nokia phones and you're trying to compare it with like a, you know a smartphone today, you know the smartphone is just much faster. So if we just think about bamboo as just so much better, you know, it kind of makes the tree-based stuff obsolete in terms of its speed for renewability. So why aren't we using bamboo products? I think those that know about it absolutely just embrace it and listen. I think there's an adoption. Anytime you bring something new into the market and we've seen lots of great examples of it. When new stuff's come in, you can use technology as a great example of that. People are always suspicious oh, it's like a digital camera. Oh well, you know, I, like you know going to the print shop or do you think we're still?
Marc Curtis:we're still kind of in the early adoption phase?
Chris Forbes:yeah, the mini market would say that we are. I mean, I think in the uk we're now about one percent of the tissue market. Okay, so I'm insignificant. Then, no, no, it's, it's, you know it's. It's getting to sort of relatively decent numbers. But I think when you start to look at, like, when do you start to come out of that really early adoption and come early majority, it's more like 5%, right, yeah, you need to get that tipping point. It's 5% really. So like we're 1%, so we've got a few more percent to where we're at.
Chris Forbes:But you know, we're certainly through that very early stage where you, you know it's, it's, it's, it's nobody's heard of it and, um, you know, when, in the beginning, people were sort of really questioning there's no need for it, right, and it's. And and 2016, when we started the business, sustainability wasn't such a big driver for mabel and and I think that you know, as we've seen, um, you know times change and you know we've seen more flooding and we've seen more flooding, especially in Europe. We're seeing lots of weather-related flooding and the change in the jet stream and stuff like that. People are starting to understand the impact of our weather systems and if we can try and do things a little bit better, then you know.
Marc Curtis:It's still quite a leap there, isn't it? I suppose it's telling that story with a product which is a long way from what people you know think of as being related to the current climate emergency. You know, I mean, it doesn't take much to actually have that conversation, but at the same time, it's kind of this thing that everybody uses we don't think about, you know, and if we do think about it, we think about it in terms of comfort rather than impact right, yeah, and I think people I mean, and we recognize it if we just wanted to have a brand that had a poor quality product, that was eco, then it wouldn't sell very much.
Chris Forbes:Sure, we always want to have. Well, there are brands, there are lots of brands like that, and we wanted to be a brand that could be mainstream. And you know, we think that the biggest impact that you can make is actually being kind of a mainstream brand. So you know, we wanted to make stuff that was really really good, where people would go, wow, you know, it was such a great product. And then the thing that keeps them coming back to the brand and become brand loyal is the fact that you know it is sustainable and it makes them feel good.
Chris Forbes:And I think that you know we can all be guilty of just buying what's on discount, sure, right, and then that necessarily for a different distribution. That's not necessarily good, because you've kind of got people just chopping in and out, shopping out all the time and you know you have very unpredictable sort of swings in prices and basically, if everyone's buying in discount, the margins are not very good. But if people are kind of being introduced to stuff because it's on discount but then stay with it. Then that's kind of where you know both the brands and the and the distributor went John.
Marc Curtis:Change it out slightly. Something I just wanted to dig into slightly, but it's something that we're quite interested in as well, or I'm quite interested in, is you're B Corp certified as a company. How long have you been B Corp? Is that something you built in from the beginning? Is there a particular reason why you want to be B Corp? Is it having a massive impact on the company or the decisions you're taking?
Chris Forbes:So we were one of the first hundred companies in the UK to become a B Corp and we became a B Corp before B Corp was really a recognised brand. So B Corp we were working in sustainable workspaces, which is like a shared workspace center in London, and we had a few people that were becoming B Corps and started to understand the virtues of it, and one of the things that we liked about B Corp is it actually puts in some really strong pillars around governance and control and some really good policies around, like ethical sourcing and environmental management and, um, you know, hr policies. So actually it's really strong foundations to build a company on. And it's that it's hard to become b corp certified. If you're a large company, you've got to re-engineer your business to be able to qualify for enough points to become a b-corp show. Um, and it was a lot of work actually, and I just find myself questioning why are we spending so much time, you know, on, you know, which took us over a year to become certified on this project, you know, for a certification that wasn't recognized at the time?
Chris Forbes:Um, however, today, um, you know, I think you know uk and your you know b B Corp is very well recognised and if, particularly the younger generation, if they see something as a B Corp certified, they don't even think about the purchase. They purchase it because they automatically go. If it's got that certification I can trust it. And there's a lot of certifications out there and you know some have got more wariness than show others. Well, even b corp taking a bit of a hit, you know, I mean it's got certain brands in it that I kind of sort of struggle with read myself. So I mean, listen, I think I think nothing's perfect and it's not saying, like the b corp's, the be all and end all thing. All you can try and be is to be the best version of yourself. And you know, if you know, just because b corp says you should do something, you should always be doing it because you want to do it, not because it's actually just ticking boxes.
Marc Curtis:So it's more aligned with your own personal ethical beliefs and, you know, obviously it helps you tell your brand story a little bit better as well.
Chris Forbes:I mean the core of our business is around an ethical, sustainable product, and so you know, if that's what the core of the business is, then you know it's very easy to then sort of build on these principles.
Marc Curtis:Okay. So it fascinates me the whole B Corp conversation because, as you say, I know that there are much larger companies who you know aspire to it but, you know, get somewhat off-put when they recognize just how much of being a startup or a growing company is. You can literally build it into the foundations of your company and use it as a way of shaping certain decisions, rather than having to retrofit it.
Chris Forbes:I mean it's good governance. I mean you sort of see, that sort of Ecovados has got very similar sort of governance. We've just become Ecovados certified as well, so it's a framework.
Chris Forbes:So, it's a framework and at the end of the day, if you can kind of sort of do things to reduce your carbon footprint and to make sure that different parts of your supply chain are all effortlessly sourced, then it just makes it easier when you're listing with larger companies when you've already done all the work, Because then it means in an unattended process you already have all the documentation. Somebody could ask me pretty much any question about my business from a technical point of view and we'd have an answer to it because it's all built into the product specifications.
Marc Curtis:No, I can attest to that. I know that in Lyrica, obviously, we have a compliance department and I think they spend an awful lot of time. I think it makes their life a lot easier if they can rely on existing, recognized and well-established certifications, rather than you know, rather than having to do the investigations ourselves. In terms of products I mean, you spoke about how many products was it you got in your liner?
Chris Forbes:Yes, about 30.
Marc Curtis:30. So, and as you said, you've just added period products to your catalog as well. I mean, how do you it's a bit like asking a comedian there how do you come up with your funny ideas, but how do you? You know what's your process as a company to looking at new products to get into. Or you know smoking decisions from an r&d perspective and also, just to add on to that, I mean, how much of that is happening in you know, in in the uk in terms of r&d and and experimenting with new ways of using you know, know the kind of the base material.
Chris Forbes:Okay. So not everything that we come up with gets approved Right. So we do run up, we do have an approval process, so we've got like an innovation board that the companies have access to so anybody can come up and sort of think, oh, I've got a good idea, or my clients ask for this particular type of product. What we then do is we then look at the market size of that product and we can check that out. On some web analytics. We'll be able to give us how many units these products sell, and then we look at how easy is it for us to be able to develop that product.
Chris Forbes:So every time you do a new product, there's quite a bit of investment, both in time and money, locked up capital, and you don't always know that every product is going to be successful. And we've launched a couple of products that haven't really worked. We've had some variations of straws. The colors have suddenly been right, or we brought out a bubble tea straw and that was too niche. It was too niche, right. Bubble tea is just not a big market right. More conservative, yeah, too niche, right. You know, bubble tea is just not a big market right. And so, and it's more in the survey. Yeah, yeah, so well as well. It's a great product, right? You know, it's just like. You know, we, we, we kind of a little bit more disciplined. So I think you know, we're becoming a little bit more corporate ourselves now, even though.
Marc Curtis:So that's an interesting, that's quite interesting. So as a challenger, you know you're experimenting with things, you're trying new products and you're doing a little bit of crazy every now and again, and as you become more established, it must be quite tough to try and retain some of that entrepreneurial yeah, emotion spirit. There's one thing I want to pick up on. Sorry to interrupt, but one thing I want to pick up on. You said that people can bring ideas to you. So, from an innovation culture perspective in your company, how does that work?
Chris Forbes:I mean we're pretty fast in being able to look at ideas and turn things around. I mean we all know each other as well. Right, it's like the teams. Like there's 30 people in London, there's five in China, so we all spend quality time with each other. So it's very easy for somebody to walk from somebody else's desk and say what about this? And if you've got different locations and you know international, then it's a lot harder. You don't have that necessarily that that sort of connection. So it's easier to build your business case um quicker when you can just pop it to someone's desk and say listen, I've got xyz client, what's this? And so you're not in an ivory tower, then you're uh no, no, we were, we're, we're, a very lean company.
Chris Forbes:Yeah, so you know, everyone rolls their sleeves up and no, I still do sales, de Julie does sales, she does all the sort of management and stuff like that. I think you know we like that culture of just getting stuff done.
Marc Curtis:It was a good day. Sorry, I did interrupt you. You were, and I've completely. Oh, you didn't worry about my train of thought there, which was really bad, because it sounded like you were about to say something that was going to be absolutely fascinating. But you about say something that was going to be absolutely fascinating, but I'll move, I'll move us on to the next thing. I mean in in terms of um, in terms of, you know, your competition, the market as a, you know, as I said, it's, you know, from an outsider perspective, it seems like it's already, I wouldn't say saturated market, but a but a, you know, a mature market, right? So you've got some big players there. How are you, how are you trying to position yourself against, or you know, alongside, I should, I should say those brands.
Chris Forbes:Well, I mean, I think you know, if you sort of look to like, you know, the big paper companies, they're all selling the same product. There wasn't a need for another tree-based paper company with a different brand. They were just in the most saturation, but there was a need for a company delivering a different fiber, Right, Right, and I think that's the same thing when we had oat milk that came into the market is there wasn't a need for another dairy brand. You know, but there's a need for some. There's always a need for people that can have better materials and you know more disruptive materials and protective materials if you need to plant it better. So if those companies didn't want to change with new materials, then actually, then they're sleeping right, you know. And actually, new materials and faster growing materials is what the future is right.
Marc Curtis:Okay, I like that idea. So it's, it's, it's you. You've almost got two types of innovation. And you've got the, the innovation which is answering an unmet need, you know, to create a net new opportunity in the market. And then you've got the existing market where we can actually start to re-examine all of the established patterns and say can we do this better or is there a different way of doing it, you know, without having to necessarily re-educate people about what the product is for yeah, I mean it's, it's almost like a category within a category.
Chris Forbes:Yeah, right, so you've actually created like a new category because, yeah, while it's the same product like tissue or like hand towels or or like facial tissues it's made out of new material. And I think we can find lots of examples in the supermarket shelves where, you know, we've seen, you know, different types of innovations that have come on. You know, yogurts is quite a good one. We've seen sort of you know sort of ice creams and stuff like that. We're kind of people using Well, they do the free-style, plant-based, the plant-based, the plant-based stop. So it's a good example of it, right, most people don't know there's a market because they've never tried something this new, right? And if we've never tried anything new, we can never evolve as a species. So if we kind of want to be better versions of ourselves, then we always got to keep pushing boundaries.
Chris Forbes:Not everything that you do works, I think that's you know, when. Not everything that you do works, I think that's, you know, when you are trying to do new things. That's something that you've got to appreciate and understand, that there's always risk to it. But you know, I think for we sold 4.1 million units of product last year. So I think you can kind of sort of say safely that it's, it's for norm, it's it's. It's not so new that it's um it's risky.
Marc Curtis:But you know there's loads of opportunity in the market for us I'm curious actually, just on the topic of because, and sorry, if you're obsessing over the toilet paper part of the business, although that's one of your value products, but it's such a, you know, in terms of market segmentation or user segmentation, especially in the b2c worlds, or, sorry, the the consumer world, you know how, how wedded are people to their brands of toilet paper. You know, if I think back 20 years, 30 years ago, it was andrix, right, you know, everybody loved the puppy um, and you know we're buying andrix, and you know, and then you've got these other various sort of big brand announcements. You know that sort of steal the market and they become, you know, but are does the rest of the market, the rest of the toilet tissue market, have brand loyalty or are they just chasing whatever's the cheapest within a certain category?
Chris Forbes:So brand loyalty is changing significantly in the under 50 category, right, okay, right. So the over 50s are still very brand loyal to brands like Andrex and Kleenex, right. And then the under 50s, which are now becoming the largest household purchasers or the people in charge of purchasing for departments or buildings, and they're more driven by values and sustainability.
Marc Curtis:Right, so this is something they will actively seek out then, yeah, right, and obviously it's part of your branding and part of your message, you know, and putting on the shelves in terms of the workplace. Then, where you've got, you know, and the same thing, I guess you know, the under 50s, the millennials, are now forming the biggest, you know, the biggest part of the workforce. How much, um, how much pressure can or are that generation putting onto the purchases in the businesses?
Chris Forbes:I mean, you're certainly seeing it within the professional services companies and you know where they're asking for reusable cups and they're asking for more sustainable, less plastic. You know more sustainable items in the canteen, better tissue in the toilet, better hand towels. So yeah, they are. I mean it's whether you know, I think maybe sort of five years ago there wasn't enough of them to be listened to. But I think now that you know, millennials are kind of you know they're now sort of in their 40s, so now forming sort of part of senior management and even sort of Gen Z is kind of moving through quite fast as well, and people are getting positions of power. That you know just because that's always been done. They're questioning those things.
Chris Forbes:So I think it's a challenge for the older brands in the market is how do they stay relevant in this changing world? And you know it's our job to challenge them actually. So it's our job to say why. Actually it's our job to say why don't you think bamboo is a good material? And what's their answer to why they're not using bamboo? And their answer would be, well, not enough people want it. Yeah, but that's not true. Yeah, they don't give it to people. If they give people the option, they'd probably find that 20% of their consumers would switch to bamboo overnight. Right, but they don't want to give them the option. It just disrupts their supply chain, A bit like the old oil tanker. Analogy is speedboats can turn very fast, oil tankers turn in a very slow cycle. And these big companies? They take five, 10 years to be able to start on them yeah, no, I see, and I find that fascinating.
Marc Curtis:I also think and you know, we we mentioned this earlier when we were chatting, and before this, before this podcast that you know, I feel that there's a there's more of an expectation with younger people in the workforce, especially in post-pandemic world. For, you know, the expectation is that we have better quality products in our workplaces and, and you know, and I wonder whether that's something that's borne out with you know, we're certainly seeing with things like coffee, for example. You know, people are not satisfied with instant coffee anymore. They're expecting a machine or a bean to cup solution or whatever, or a barista, you know, and we're seeing it with furniture and you know, and various other categories. And you know, is it the the same? Are you seeing the same kind of conversations? You know, when you are actually talking directly to business customers, you know, is that, is that part of it as well? That the quality is it? Oh yeah?
Chris Forbes:we had a large hotel chain that we supply um and um. They said, and we recently went around and spoke to the housekeepers and um, um, some of the housekeepers are saying well, sometimes we used to get complaints about the quality of our toilet tissue. Right since we've been using cheeky bander we've had no complaints. So nobody's turned around and said isn't it great that you've changed the toilet tissue? But everyone stopped complaining. We had a large insurance company that we we did an open day. So we were at the in the foyer just sort of educating people about the fact that they switched over to Chicky Panda, and I think a lot of people in that building have been using Chicky Panda at home and coming up and saying thank you.
Marc Curtis:And I guess that's the other challenge as well in the workplace. Your branding isn't immediately obvious either, is it? So there's a not a disconnect, but there's a gap between the knowledge of. They can experience the product and they know that it's a better product, hopefully, but they don't necessarily associate it with your brand because it will be coming out of a Beaks dispenser.
Chris Forbes:Yeah, so on that, there's two things. I'm launching a new dispenser range in March.
Marc Curtis:Okay.
Chris Forbes:So that's launching at the London Cleveland Show. So that basically gives us lovely black and white branded dispensers how excellent. So they look like pandas. Yeah, they look like pandas, really Pandas dispensers with our logo on it. And the other thing that we're doing is we're actually putting a print of Chicky Panda in the core Right so that you can see on the inside of the core if it's just like a regular toilet paper and it's sitting on a toilet paper and it's sitting on the toilet paper boulder, you can still notice cheeky panda, because because sometimes even I've guessed this is that. Is that cheeky panda? No, we didn't know, but now you can see I'm actually a cheeky panda that's fantastic.
Marc Curtis:That'd be interesting. I'm going to be checking out the inside of toilet rolls for now, sad life's really. Yeah, absolutely. Uh. Well, I mean that, but that's the thing, right, right, it's a fundamental product. You know, everybody uses toilet paper, certainly in the West, you know that's. You know, in the UK and Europe, toilet paper is something that everybody uses and nobody talks about, you know, unless it's you know, and even in the workplace and I've worked in some places which you know have effectively tracing paper in the toilets yeah, you know, it's not something you're going to come back and talk to your colleagues about. It's like, oh, blimey, yeah, how bad was that toilet vaver? You know, because that's just not a conversation that people are having. Are you seeing a shift at all in some of the taboos around? Let's call it euphemistically personal hygiene, you know, office-based hygiene.
Chris Forbes:Well, I think one of the things that we massively overlook, and maybe this is where we should be speaking a little bit more to HR departments to join up.
Chris Forbes:Our thinking is that 25% of people have got skin conditions, right, and they get irritations.
Chris Forbes:So whether that can be stuff like hay fever or sensitive skin or other irritations that you can get, like sort of IBS and stuff like that, you know. Then you know um toilet tissue that's got chemicals in it is going to cause massive irritation. So you've got people suffering with sirens. So it actually, you know it, costs less than one p per day per person per tissue, right, right, and it's it's one of the most personal um items that anybody can use in the workplace. But we will spend, you, you know, £30 a month on you know, redeemable perks that aren't what they use, but then we won't actually spend a little bit more money on something that's a little bit more personal. I think that sometimes we need to be a little more joined up in our thinking between different departments about why people spend money over there in these massive consultancy projects but not actually something that would make, you know, a fundamental difference to people's lives, and I think that bit still got a bit to go yeah, because it's not something you put on your corporate website, right?
Marc Curtis:no, you know we, you know you, you have a wealth, health and wellness program, but you know you're not going to put on your company website.
Chris Forbes:Oh and, by the way, we've got the softest toilet paper, but I'll tell you what, right, if you're, um, if you're a firm, or if you're a bank or an insurance company, you've got big clients coming in and then they have a bad experience in your toilet. They're not going to be very happy, right? So you think actually, you know how much money have you spent trying to get that person in the building and then you let them down on a personal experience. It's not necessary. So it's just like I was going to say don't race to the bottom right, Don't always just give people the cheapest thing. And, you know, find the balance between, like you know, high quality and sustainability.
Marc Curtis:It's interesting as well.
Marc Curtis:You touched on ibs so briefly and we, we, um, we were working with a startup um who was specifically um interested in helping people to understand the correlation between diet, lifestyle and bowel issues, and you know, trying to break down those taboos, and parts of that conversation actually is about the provision of decent.
Marc Curtis:You know toilet paper and sanitary products and so forth, and you know you obviously even got wet wipes on the thing. I think you know who, just as somebody who's had young children, you know that period in your life when you have unlimited surprise of wet wipes in the house is is you weirdly miss them when they're gone, you know, because you don't have to buy them anymore. But but I think that's a that's an interesting point as well. It's something that is quite often not paid enough attention to by businesses the fact that a good proportion I can't remember the exact numbers, but it was significant a good proportion of people at work have bowel issues and and that can be a living hell for them. Yeah, that's right and there are things that can be done to make that better, and that toilet tissue is a big part of that.
Chris Forbes:We did a. I did a poll um about three months ago on LinkedIn, which are over 100 respondents, and they basically said what do you think about the quality of your toilet paper? And I said it's excellent, it's good. Not good, but will work terrible, right. So how many people do you think, as a percentage, were in the bottom two?
Marc Curtis:Oh, I don't know, I'm going to go 50% 60%.
Chris Forbes:That's terrifying, right? So 60% of people and these are all working for big corporations we won't name names, right, but they think that they're toilet papers and they're paying people £100,000 probably a year, and some of them a lot more than that. And then they're paying their people a hundred thousand pound, probably a year, and some of them a lot more than that, and then they're cheaping out on the thing that's probably the most personal to them and everybody, everyone's happy to answer that in the poll. So that's really interesting now.
Marc Curtis:I think I think that's a really interesting point because we always ask about, you know, material things that can change your working environment. And we, you know, the top three things that we always come up against are air quality, noise and sound and sound. Sorry, noise. Sorry. Air quality, heat temperature and sound right, those are the three things, but nobody's going to volunteer information about the toilet paper. But if you put that in there, you know you're going to get the results. I think that's a really interesting point and something that I'm definitely going to think about putting in our next survey.
Marc Curtis:Listen, we're reaching the end, so I've got two more questions for you and and I'll give you a heads up on the first one so you can think about it while you're answering the second um, I like to ask and people if there's anybody that they look to and admire or respect as pioneers? Um, because that's what this podcast is about. It's about pioneers. That's what I was bringing to you, because we think that you're a pioneer in the world of, you know, sustainable tissue products, toilet paper, etc. So have that back in your mind if you can multitask. And the the first question there is you know what's next? Where are you going? What's the? You know. You talked about the dispensers, but you know what's on your horizon. What are you? What are you interested in?
Chris Forbes:yeah. So, um, you know we've we're bringing out a new dispenser range which I think is going to look absolutely fantastic, you know, really nice and clean, modern. We're always bringing out sort of innovative paper products and we're always sort of challenging ourselves and what can we do better in terms of box sizing? What can we do in terms of packaging to reduce, you know, plastic waste? You know all our paper products. There's no plastic in them whatsoever, you know. So we've saved, like you know, thousands of kilos of plastic waste by people using our products With carbon work. You know, we're doing some very interesting research for universities and natural capital and the value of keeping trees in the ground instead of cutting trees down and using parts of trees for toilet paper.
Marc Curtis:Natural capital is a, I mean that's the subject of a whole other podcast.
Chris Forbes:Yeah, and it's a very deep subject that's emerging. I think it's going to be a long part of the conversation going forward, but there's still a lot to be understood about that. It's kind of like ESG. When ESG was like five years ago, a lot of people didn't understand it, so it's a so just in summary, summary, natural capital is the stuff we take from nature.
Marc Curtis:Basically, that's right, yep, and we're in debt at the moment. There's a cost?
Chris Forbes:yeah, there's a cost, but companies basically can access that stuff without 100, yeah, so, and there'll be insurance to that at some point in time, though. So I think we know we are. You know we're expanding through europe. I think that's one of the things we listed with you guys um for europe from um at the start of last year. Um, we're expanding into the us as well. Um, and what we're trying to do now is we're trying to do more global corporate real estate, right, so we're trying to do stuff where, if you've got a large bank and it's multi-location across multi-countries, that we can have cheeky panda throughout the whole stake. Um, or whether it's a law firm or something like that, that we can supply um, any location, and I think that you play a big part in in that.
Chris Forbes:Um, who do I admire most? Um, right, so I'm I. If people that might not have seen before, um, if you check me out on linkedin, you'll see. Um, chris forbes wears a panda hat. Um and um. I took that from richard branson, right, because richard branson said wear your brand, and I took that quite literally. I thought, well, if my band brands a panda, I might as well wear a panda hat. So I'm gonna have to give a nod to Richard, who has been a pioneer for creating new sectors and taking on a lot of risk and some of it's worked and some of it hasn't worked and I think sometimes he's obviously getting on now but he's been a good example for that spirit of an entrepreneur and pioneer about taking on sectors that have been very much not doing anything interesting and shaking up well, I've been for a generation, several generations.
Marc Curtis:You've been the epitome of British innovation and entrepreneurialism, really, isn't it until Dyson came along, probably?
Chris Forbes:yeah, absolutely yeah okay, brilliant.
Marc Curtis:Well, look, we will take a picture of you in your hat so we can put it out with the podcast as well, but for the moment, chris, thank you so much for inviting me at short notice into your hat. Yeah, thanks a lot, and I genuinely appreciate that. It's been a really interesting conversation and hopefully we'll be seeing you at the Future of Work convention on the 5th of June in Brussels. But until then, thank you very much. Bye Spot, so thank you very much, Bye.
Marc Curtis:Spot. So thank you again to Chris Forbes. That was a really interesting conversation. I especially love talking to companies who've gone through the B Corp process and we've got a couple more interviews with brands who have gone down the B Corp route. It's such an important journey for companies to go on and it's something that is particularly close to my heart and also, frankly as well, the hearts of Lyrica as well. It's something that we really like to recognise with the people that we work with.
Marc Curtis:If you are interested and you should be if you're interested in the Future Work Conference on the 5th of June in Brussels, please go along to future-of-workeu and sign up there. Of-workeu and sign up there. And if you are a Lyrico customer or you have a contact in the Lyrico world, talk to them and I'm sure they can sort you out with a discount code for the event. Hope to see you then in June. Bye-bye, we'll see you next time, thank you. Welcome to the Pioneers podcast by Lyrico. I'm Mark Curtis. Each edition we're talking to pioneers in their own fields. We're talking to business leaders, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, keynote speakers basically anybody who's got something interesting to say about the workplace and is pioneering the way we think about the future of work.
