We're an Australian-owned company, and after a lot (and we mean A LOT) of thoughtful consideration, we’ve proudly set up our manufacturing operations in China. There’s a bit of a misconception about production in China, which we think is important address. We work closely with our producers to ensure standards and processes we’re happy with, plus we found that China offered a lot of wonderful benefits:
- We can use paper wrappers and recycled cardboard boxes rather than plastic! We couldn’t find an Australian producer that would let us to this with varied designs for our wrappers.
- We have access to a large pool of local, raw materials– both post-consumer waste paper and bamboo (neither of which is readily available in Australia). By using China's local materials, we avoid importing from overseas.
- We can cut the cost of operations, passing on those savings to our customers. Australian toilet tissue manufacturers are few and far between, and they all have their own brands. We’d be asking one of our competitors to make our products!
For our North American launch, we’ve sea freighted containers of stock into both the east and west coast, and are distributing from there. Don’t worry, we’re not flying your toilet paper orders over from Australia! It's still early days of our international growth, and selling in the US opens up a lot of new opportunities in terms of supply chain and partnering with more local producers. This is something we'll keep exploring as we grow our volumes and have better leverage on pricing.
All of these factors ensure we’re building a sustainable business model that delivers quality and environmentally responsible products at competitive prices. This allows us to focus on our greater mission: building toilets for those who need them!