PlantSwitch is a company dedicated to transforming agricultural waste into bioplastic pellets. Their next strategic investment is to open a new facility focused on scaling-up this process, for annual mass bioplastic production.  

Maxime Blandin and Dillion Baxter are the two Southern Methodist University alumni who founded this company, with an aim of using agricultural waste to manufacture a solution to the single-use plastic issue. Since starting out, the company has faced multiple challenges which they have successfully overcome as they have been growing to the point they are now. At first, whilst in Dallas, they started by selling companies and businesses finished products made out of eco-friendly materials, these items included things like straws. However, the pair were not happy with the final product as they believed it was too costly and not sustainable enough for that price. Therefore, after searching for a solution in the form of a sustainable material, which also left them unsatisfied, they made the decision to create a team to help them find an alternative solution to single-use plastics. This decision led to what the company still does today, which involves accepting waste from companies and transforming that waste into plant-based bioplastic pellets. Once manufactured, these go up for sale to companies who can purchase them and transform them into items such as utensils, which can then go onto retailers who will sell them to consumers.

The announcement made recently, stated that, now the company is based in Sanford, N.C., they will be preparing to open and begin operations within a 52,000-square-foot facility which will transform 30 million pounds of agricultural waste into 50 million pounds of bioplastic annually. These pellets will be manufactured into forks, spoons, knives, straws, containers, pots, lawn spikes and golf tees.

The company has also said that to make all this possible they have been given $7.7 million in new financial backing, with $2 million of that coming from NextPoint. They have also stated that their expectation is to begin production for their first consumers within two weeks of the site being open.

PlantSwitch also has future plans for scaling up further and growing its employee basis. This will be possible, as through experiments they have proven that their technology is capable of producing pellets which are the same quality, but will be sold at a lower price compared to other bioplastic pellets in the market.

A co-founder Baxter, commented, “The Sanford facility’s 13 employees will be responsible for turning waste from top food service brands into reusable materials with its exclusive technology.” He continued, “When I realized how bad this plastic pollution problem was, that’s when I knew this made perfect sense. The more I learned about the market and how little alternatives there were out there was, when I knew we needed to do something about it.”

“It will be priced lower than other plastic alternatives. It’s still going to cost a premium compared to traditional plastic, but consumers have shown that they’re more than willing to pay for that. So, we view our competition not as plastic but the other alternatives out there,” Baxter added.