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Ephora Solutions aims to become a circular economy hub
The young startup Ephora Solutions on Wageningen Campus wants to recycle, or better upcycle (where the product is processed into one or more new products), material streams in the entire value chain of any given industry. Two former WUR students approach circularity issues from a social and ecological perspective, which stems from their idea of contributing to a circular economy. Read their experiences when starting their business, how they changed from brokers into consultants and how they see the future of their young company.
One of the co-founders Camilla Visconti is optimistic: “We want to be a ‘collaboration bridge’, so partners can use Ephora Solutions to close the circle of product/waste streams in their business.”
What is the core business of Ephora Solutions?
Ephora Solutions uses jute bags from specialty coffee beans and upcycles them into a valuable product for other companies. We look for waste streams and try to turn them into a circular economy innovation, based on the principles of circularity. In this way we create new business opportunities.
We chose the name Ephora for our business because it’s a feminine name which is representative of us two female founders. It’s also open ended. Our business is adaptable, and we can keep this name going forward.
How did you start the company?
My co-founder Evi-Mara van Beekhuizen did an internship at a specialty coffee importer ‘This-Side-Up’. They wanted her to look at the issue of how to minimise their waste streams. Their coffee came in jute bags with a plastic bag inside. This plastic bag was for extra protection, a so-called hermetic bag. Both these types of bags were considered as waste. So, we needed to find a better way to reuse these bags.
For a while we searched for customers and contacted a wide range of companies and even artists to see if they were interested. We started to collect the bags to be ready for potential customers. We had almost struck a deal with a partner who wanted to use the hermetic bags for crop storage for farmers. We had already sorted out the good ones and categorised them into three different quality classes. But then the pandemic hit, and the project ground to a halt because of the increased shipping prices. We had to change our business.
We had been in contact with a fashion designer at an earlier stage of our research, who was interested in recycling jute bags. We decided to pursue the idea and looked for jute recycling opportunities here in the Netherlands. We found Saxion University that was keen to process the jute bags on their recycling machines. We developed a partnership to pursue this research, and later they were given a grant to continue. At the same time, Ephora won a grant in the WWF Student Innovation Challenge so we had money for testing and research in cooperation with the Saxion University lab. We found a weaving company ‘Zwartz’ which will start weaving using our recycled jute from this September. All the participants are looking forward to working together. So, it was a slow start, but a good one. We’ll see where it takes us. We want to expand, but we don’t have any new projects yet.
What is the link with WUR?
Evi-Mara and I are the two co-founders of Ephora Solutions. We both studied at WUR and finished the MSc programmes Environmental Policy and Urban Environmental Management.
How many, and what kind of, people work for you?
We had an intern Roos van Buren who worked for us in autumn of 2021. All three of us were enthusiastic about the collaboration, so we appointed her as third co-founder. She has finished her MSc Biobased Sciences and is now doing research to explore new projects. She has expertise in life cycle analysis which is very valuable for our business.
What are the benefits of being on Wageningen Campus?
It was very helpful doing the Ideation Programme of StartHub. You get the tools to explore ideas for your startup, which is very useful. Evi-Mara and I took courses in entrepreneurship provided by StartHub. Working with people from StartHub, was very useful to refine our ideas. We want to mention Martin van Zwol, who was our advisor from the verybeginning of the Ephora journey. He and others encouraged us and helped us start building our network.
Do you use the facilities on campus?
We were able to use office space at Starthub to start our business and now have a membership to use flex space at PlusUltra II. You’ll often find one of us there. We’ve got no complaints about accommodation. We store the jute and hermetic bags we collect in a warehouse that belongs to Evi-Mara’s parents in Beesd. At present we’ve got everything we need for our business on campus. Now, with fewer Covid restrictions, a lot of colleagues of startups are returning to Wageningen to work in Plus Ultra II so things are getting busier.
During the events organised by StartHub we have conversations with other entrepreneurs who are often struggling with similar problems. We can learn from others, recently for instance in the field of Intellectual Property (IP).
How do you see the future of your company?
We’d love to see Ephora Solutions evolve to having a wide portfolio of different upcycling solutions. We strongly believe you can’t achieve a circular economy on your own. You have to collaborate with other partners. We want to be that kind of bridge, so partners can use Ephora Solutions to close the circle of product/waste streams in their business. For now, our business is jute bags, but we’re keen to tackle other waste streams.
How do you see the future on campus?
Our future is in the Netherlands because there’s a lot of understanding and know-how of the circular economy here. But we don’t necessarily have to be located in Wageningen. We can work from anywhere. Maybe in the future we’ll move from here to somewhere with more storage space. But Wageningen is a good place to start. We’ve found that a network of family and friends is fundamental for a startup.