00:00I'm Josie I am from a company called Allcool and we're based in Staffordshire in the Midlands.
00:14Okay so this evening you're shortlisted for an award made in the UK what award is it that
00:23you're going for? We're going for the Environmental Sustainability Awards I think it's called that
00:28but yes it's environmental award that we are up for. Okay and you've just been sitting on the round
00:33table with the topic of ESG as well so what are some of the discussion points that you've just
00:41heard on your round table? I think what's really interesting and what we said on the table was
00:45actually as many businesses in the UK are doing loads of fantastic things around sustainability
00:50but we don't shout about them so what was really interesting around the table is people saying
00:54oh we're doing bits and bobs and when they start actually talking about it they're doing so much
00:58so one of the things that came out was really maybe we should shout about it more because the
01:01more people you see that are doing more sustainable practices the more people will follow suit and I
01:07think topics around you know baby steps so how do you how do you start a sustainable journey quite
01:13often people will feel like it's a big hill to push something up when actually we're talking about
01:18those baby steps you can engage with and also around not just being sustainable from an environmental
01:26perspective but a lot of the talk was around looking after your people and how that can
01:30create a sustainable business as well. So it's the social side isn't it but also I guess the
01:34sustainability in the sense of retention? Yes sustainability I mean really one of the guys
01:40made a great point that if you're a sustainable business in all aspects that's the best kind of
01:44business because you can invest obviously in in your people you can invest in the planet you can invest in
01:49the right materials and you're not just throwing something away because it's the cheapest thing to do
01:54because you've got maybe a bit of funding in the bank to make sure you're doing the right thing so
01:58sustainability means environmental and social but also being a business can last into the future
02:04and create good jobs for good people and also look after the planet. Yeah okay and so tell me a little
02:10bit about your company and your product Woolcool. So we produce insulated packaging using sheep's wool so
02:18essentially it's a replacement for polystyrene boxes typically our products used for the shipment of food and
02:23pharmaceutical products so everything from meat dairy fish and all the way through to vaccines diet
02:30pens botox um iv bags so we cover the whole spectrum anything that needs to be kept temperature controlled
02:37and our product can be useful. So who would your customer be would they be the people who
02:42you know the the couriers or would it be the the manufacturers or would it be the shippers or what?
02:47So our customers actually go across the whole breadth we've got um distributors so people who are maybe
02:52sending food to other food companies for them to send out we've got e-commerce so quite a few of our
02:57customers are e-commerce yeah um so they might be sending uh ready meals or they might be sending pet
03:02food um direct to the consumer and we've then got um wholesalers um particularly maybe pharmaceutical
03:08wholesalers who are shipping to pharmacies and then we've got pharmacies who are shipping out to
03:12patients or between hospitals as well. And where did the idea for the product come from?
03:17So the product actually was invented by our founder and she was a packaging consultant and she was
03:25working on a project with the national trust and her remit as a packaging consultant was to
03:30find a way to replace polystyrene because the national trust wanted their farmers who they were
03:33looking after to send their produce out in the post um but without using polystyrene boxes because
03:38the national trust are very much about sustainability um so they said basically in early 2000s when
03:43sustainability wasn't such a big topic yeah can you replace our polystyrene boxes so that's where
03:49it came from she invented wool um using 100 cheap wool did testing um national trust went and used the
03:56products after they were happy with the product design and then since then it's grown um and we
04:00launched officially in 2009 as wool call and since then we've um kind of gone from strength to strength
04:05particularly as i say e-commerce and food distribution but going into the pharmaceuticals more and more now
04:10and in terms of the wool i mean is this um wool that would otherwise be used for sort of woolly
04:15jumpers or is it kind of stuff that would just be wasted or or what yeah so it's it's the it's the
04:20wool that you wouldn't want as a woolly jumper it's quite coarse wool so it tends to be the wool
04:25typically that would go to waste in the industry or it might be used for cheaper carpets it can't
04:30really be dyed because it tends to be the grayer walls as well right so we're using um kind of the
04:35coarser walls that um wooden um wouldn't no you wouldn't want to make a scarf out of them yeah
04:40but they would probably um it would probably end up either um being quite low value or a product
04:45goes to waste and or it would end up being burned or dug into the ground so is it good for the farmers
04:51as well are they get you know getting additional value from something that they they normally wouldn't
04:56so typically there is quite a complex supply chain with the wool um but what we're hoping is by creating
05:01a market for the lower value walls that the farmers do get paid for that wool right it's quite saying
05:05quite often a lot of it there isn't a market for so it doesn't sell so they don't get any money for it
05:09so what we'd like to do over the time is probably drive that more and more and have more engagement
05:12with those farmers fair trade i try to do
05:20Josie thank you so much for your time and i'd like to say the best of luck to you as well tonight yeah
05:26very excited about it i always love a meal as well so absolutely me too thanks very much
05:30thanks so much for this time
