Sunday's Thoughtful Post :GREAT WRAP MEETS A TOUGH REALITY

 ✅Sunday's Thoughtful Post

It's a wrap. A great idea meets a tough reality. I've just read the sad news that Great Wrap has ceased trading. With a great product idea, an alternative to the plastic cling film, & strong branding, why did it fail? Where did it go wrong? I didn't understand, so I did some research and found out what the lessons were for others in the purpose driven products & circular economy space.

✅ What the company was

Great Wrap, founded in 2019 by Jordy Kay and Julia Kay in Melbourne, Australia, developed compostable cling wrap & pallet wrap made from foodwaste and plantbased polymers.

It was positioned as a sustainable alternative to conventional plastic stretch wrap, with strong media attention and investor support (inclu a A$24 million funding round in 2022).

The business had ambitions to scale: in 2022 it expanded its production facility to allow manufacturing of up to 30,000 tonnes of compostable wrap per year.

🚨 Why it ended

The company never achieved profitability: It incurred losses every year since its founding, with cumulative losses reported of over A$26 million.

Market shift

Its business model was built around compostable packaging, but many retailers and FMCG companies shifted strategy away from compostable materials & instead toward recycled content plastics / their own recycling operations. This reduced demand for Great Wrap’s products.

Over-capacity & demand shortfall

The manufacturing plant and equipment were built based on demand forecasts that did not materialise, meaning the cost base was too high for the realised revenue.

Insolvency

On 17 September 2025, the company’s operating entity (Plantabl Packaging Pty Ltd) entered voluntary administration with debts of roughly A$39 million. All 5 employees were made redundant, operations at the facility ceased.

🔍 Key take-aways & lessons

Strong idea, great brand and visual identity + sustainability credentials aren’t enough:

Commercial viability, market timing & cost structure matter just as much.

Innovation in manufacturing & sustainability is capital-intensive & risky when demand doesn’t scale as planned.

Market trends can shift rapidly

What looked like a growth opportunity (compostable packaging) was overtaken by other strategies (recycled content plastics) that proved more attractive in practice.

My own thoughts

With high fixed costs in manufacturing, things can go bad very quickly when sales slows down. I've seen this happen to a few purposedriven companies where manufacturing fixed costs are high & they grow too quickly, overordering stock they think will sell but doesn't.

Possible answers

With smaller products selling online, people have been successful in creating waiting lists and getting people to pre-order. Is this one solution? Or will people not wait and go elsewhere.

Buying & manufacturing in scale brings the cost/manufacturing price down but at what cost to the business. It's a difficult balance to get right.

source: Emma Geraghty