The Story behind Koinpack
Sachets provide low-income customers with easy access to household essentials such as shampoo, dish soap and detergent. However, out of the 430 billion sachets produced each year in South East Asia, less than 9% gets recycled. The rest ends up in landfills and in our ocean. Koinpack thinks beyond recycling and aims to shift the current linear business model into a circular model. Koinpack operates a tech-enabled reusable packaging system for consumer goods on a deposit and reward model to replace sachets.
Koinpack has been launched by Enviu (www.enviu.org) as part of its Zero Waste Living Lab program (zerowastelivinglab.enviu.org) together with Koinpack’s directors Bintang Ekananda and Trian Effransa. Enviu is an international venture builder of social enterprises with offices in Rotterdam, Bangalore, Jakarta, Nairobi and Santiago de Chile, founded in 2004. As part of Enviu and ZWLL, Koinpack is supported by Enviu’s team of experienced venture builders and has access to the full network of Enviu. Enviu will stay involved with Koinpack until it has its own full team and the right partners and sufficient funding to scale.
Reinventing Household Essentials Packaging System
Next to China, Indonesia is the world’s biggest contributor to ocean plastics. One of the largest and most complex contributors to the plastic waste are single-use packages, and more specifically single-use sachets. As recycling is not yet possible, out of 430 billion sachets produced each year in South East Asia less than 3% gets downcycled. The rest ends up polluting the environment, often spilling into the oceans.
At the same time, single-use packaging currently plays an important role in the distribution of everyday products such as home and personal care products, whereby sachets even more so as they serve those in society with smaller pockets. Koinpack tries to think beyond recycling and innovate new business models that allow efficient distribution of products to the middle and lower segments to serve this group better and at the same time make single-use packages obsolete.
From a systemic perspective, a model like Koinpack’s in which packages are reused again is the most efficient. Currently, empty packages need to be collected, cleaned, sorted and recycled before they can get back in the supply chain. This is an expensive, complicated and lengthy process. Koinpack’s system is much easier and shorter and hence preferable above the current practices.
The Solution Provided by Koinpack
Koinpack enables brands to sell their products zero-waste while taking care of the operations behind it. Currently, Koinpack sells and delivers home and personal care products (liquid detergent, dishwashing detergent, body wash, fabric care and shampoo) in reusable bottles through local warung stores, waste bank communities. The system allows for expansion into different consumer goods.
Customers buy the products and pay a small deposit for the bottles. They use the products, enjoy a more convenient usage, return the empty bottles to the warungs, and get their deposit and a small incentive for their return. Subsequently Koinpack collects the empty bottles when delivering new ones, cleans and refills them and sells them again to the warungs.Their solution is currently targeting the lower and middle classes in urban Indonesia who are frequently using products in sachets and pouches.
Koinpack has successfully carried out its first pilot phase in which warung store owners phased out sachets and collected valuable learnings for the next phase. Their reusable packages also give the consumer a convenience as well as a price benefit. The packages can be distributed and purchased as normal. Once used, the consumer returns the package and receives an incentive (hence the price benefit).
The pilot shows that Koinpack’s solution is operational and commercially viable, as well as highly scalable. In just this pilot, Koinpack has saved more than 10 thousand sachets. By scaling up to 1,000 stores in 2021, Koinpack can save around 20 million sachets in 2021.
Koinpack’s Achievement and Long-term Plan
Koinpack has the long-term goal to offer a distribution model that facilitates FMCG companies’ supply chain that drastically reduces the usage of difficult to recycle single use plastics.
- With the help of ALPLA, Koinpack has developed its first 100 ml reusable bottle for home and personal care. This bottle can be used a minimum of 50 times which equals a life span of around 5 years and is fully recyclable into a new bottle once it is no longer usable.
- Koinpack has also launched its first version of the mobile app for the resellers. The mobile application digitizes the entire transaction process at the sales points. The entire bottle return system (deposits and incentives) as well as all sales data, consumer preferences, customer incentives have been integrated in this app.
- Koinpack has performed its pilot program in Jakarta and Depok, Indonesia since March 2020 with an initial batch of 500 reusable bottle products in initially two and eventually twelve locations. In just this pilot, Koinpack has saved more than 10 thousand sachets. By scaling up to 1,000 stores in 2021, Koinpack can save around 20 million sachets in 2021.
- Koinpack currently has achieved return rates up to 70%, while this number is still increasing as products can take 4-6 weeks before they are finished and people need some time to get used to the habit of returning packages to the store.
Koinpack has designed its next phase of the pilot. In this phase, Koinpack will change its position in the supply chain, focusing on the crucial but missing part of the circular distribution cycle: the return and cleaning of the empty packages.
In order to master this part of the supply chain, Koinpack has tied up with P&G and Nestle and started working with Wings, while advanced talks with other companies are ongoing. The purpose of this pilot is to integrate Koinpack’s model into the current supply chain of these companies, so that together the reuse model of Koinpack can grow rapidly throughout Indonesia and other countries in South East Asia.
Currently, Koinpack is looking for an additional funding of EUR 500,000, to actualize its 3-years plan until 2023:
- Expand its partnerships: multiply the size of the projects with P&G and Nestle and convince other FMCGs such as Unilever, Beiersdorf and KAO to join.
- Further build on its partnerships with local and the central governments in Indonesia to establish support for its activities.
- Invest in R&D on reusable packaging. Different product types require different materials, designs and standard operational procedures for filling and washing. This will allow Koinpack to expand its product offering and to improve the efficiency of its delivery.
- Further expand its technology so that the back end of its app can connect with the back end of multiple existing tools as currently used by FMCGs.
The talents behind Koinpack:
Jesse van de Zand, Regional Director Enviu S/SE Asia
- 10+ years experience in social entrepreneurship across South and South East Asia.
- Co-launched 5+ start-ups independently and with Enviu, out of which 2 have been exited.
- Three master’s degrees from two renown Dutch Universities.
Bintang Ekananda, Director
- 3 years experience in managing environmental management system in a multinational chemical company in Jakarta.
- Graduated from University of Leeds, UK with the Chevening Scholarships – a full scholarship from the UK Government.
Trian Effransa, Operations Director
- 8+ years experience in managing operations and sales in an FMCG company and the biggest edu-tech startup in Indonesia.
- Graduated from ITB, one of the three best universities in Indonesia.
