EP109. A beauty refill scheme where bigger is better

Imagine a world where beauty brands create formulations that you need, but do so in a respectful way, not expecting you to constantly purchase the next upsell or return to them immediately for more, more, more, but instead wanting to encourage you to take your time, buy in bulk and come back when you're ready. Now this concept might seem a world apart from the reality of the thousands of beauty adverts that have served us every single day telling us that we must buy the latest anti wrinkle cream on the market. Or we might show signs of age. But it could also be the future, once the reality of the climate and ecological emergency really starts to take hold and consumption at the levels we've become accustomed to simply isn't possible anymore. But what would that look like? How would that work? Can you imagine buying a cleanser or a face cream in a bulk container and then sending it back for a refill? This whole idea might seem really alien to you because it's not a model that the beauty industry uses yet, but that doesn't mean the industry couldn't shift that way. And that's why in this episode I'm going to speak to a very inspirational brand owner who has embedded sustainability at the very core of their business. Don't want to miss this because we might just be looking at the future of the beauty industry. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that chann challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 180 countries worldwide who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. So in today's episode I'm joined by Tara Pelletier, the co founder of Meow Meow Tweet, a vegan low waste personal care company based in the US. They were the first brand to introduce 100% backyard compostable deodorant sticks and lip balms and they've now embraced circular systems of reuse that eliminate waste entirely. Meow Meow Tweet is also a certified plastic, negative and climate neutral company and the moment I came across Meow Meow Tweet, I was instantly mesmerized by the refill systems they offer and the way they engage so mindfully with their customers. So I was delighted when Tara agreed to join me for this interview. Hi, Tara. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Good.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, I am so excited that you're here because I know you have the most incredible brand and I can't wait to hear all about it. So let's start at the top. Let's set the scene. First, can you tell us more about Meow Meow Tweet, what you make and sell and how long have you been going?

Sure. Meow Meow Tweet is a vegan, low waste personal care brand based out of California now, but we were founded in New York in 2009, so we've been around for a fair bit. And we manufacture all of our own products. And one of our focuses, besides recognizable and unrefined sort of simple ingredients, is a commitment to addressing packaging waste within our line. And we do that through compostable paper options and also refill options.

Amazing. And obviously, you know, the longevity behind your brand speaks volumes. And today I really wanted to unpick all of the work you're doing around circularity and the circular economy. So let's start right at the heart of it. What made you decide to embrace a refill scheme and the circular economy?

It was just an idea at first. I mean, my partner and I are avid campers and one of our favorite things to do is we. The US is huge. And before we had a kid, we would go on these two week trips in various parts of the US and we would always stop at whatever local food co op there was and just revel in the beautiful bulk section. And I think that if you're someone that is interested in bulk products, like, everyone just loves going and checking out what the bulk section is and like whatever tiny little co op or whatever you might be in a small town somewhere. So at first we were like, well, there's no deodorant cream here. All we see is liquid soap. You know, like that was it liquid soap. So at first we were like, let's try to get our deodorant cream into some of these stores. And eventually we kind of expanded that because we manufacture all of our own products, we have a lot of flexibility so we can try things out and not run huge runs of them and see if it's going to stick. And it did. You know, of course we're committed to reducing packaging waste. We first came out with our compostable deodorant tubes, which are made of Paper, uncoated paper, so it can compost in your backyard.

Compost.

You don't need industrial compost for it, which is very important to us. But still, I kind of view it as waste. It's a single use item. There's no way to refill it because it sort of starts biodegrading as you're using it. Like the oils kind of like get on it from your fingers and stuff, stuff like that. Unless you get like really excellent at using it. And so a lot of the refill program's inspiration was about like, how do we get rid of single use packaging but have it be easy for people too, because there's such a barrier to like going to your local shop or whatever. So we had, we had had our products in a lot of local places and we were able to get refill stations and things like that. But our refill program on our website came out of just trying to create even more ease of use and ease of experience for our customer.

Yeah, so how did you initially start offering those refills then? Because you will come to the amazing setup you have now. But what was it like in the.

Early days, the ones on our E commerce site or the ones in stores? Well, so we knew from the beginning that we wanted to take full responsibility of the packaging and which to that, to us that means accepting the packaging back, cleaning, sterilizing it and then refilling it. It means not putting any packaging back into the waste stream and not recycling. Like not promoting recycling either. That's a whole other subject. But it is ye. So at first we just introduced our deodorant creams because we knew that we had a loyal following for those. We felt pretty positive that if we offered a bigger size even people would buy them. And we were like, so yes, let's offer a bigger size, but how can we take it further and essentially remove the idea that any of the packaging will go away, you know, like go to your recycling bin or has to be reused in some creative way for your plant clippings or whatever. Like how many plant clippings and bobby pins do we have? I'm sure you've seen all, you know, we've all, we've all seen the like marketing things where it's like, let's use this cute jar for this. But we use a lot of skincare products and we don't have the ability to do reuse for everything. Pasta jars too, right? Like how many, how many pasta sauce jars can we save? So we basically crunched numbers, we sat down and we were like, okay, if it was this size and we offered this much of a discount on it, because we felt as if we were. If we were offering something in bulk, it had to be discounted so that it created some value in that way for the customer as well. And can we afford to send it for free and receive back the packaging for free? And then we got in touch with this little department out of MIT in Massachusetts that is a. They basically do, like, sustainability consulting. And we were basically like, is this sustainable for us to, like. Essentially like, is it actually sustainable to get the packaging back and then wash it and clean it? Because there's, like, a lot of resources that are used in that as well. And we did a little project with them where we did all of these, like, kind of scenarios, different scenarios. So if someone does decide that they're not going to return the jar and they put it in their bin, what's the likelihood it's going to get recycled? What's the likelihood that and how much? Like, what is the kind of footprint of that? And then if they return it to us, we wash it, we refill it and send it out. What's the footprint of that? And we basically determined, like, how many uses each jar has to get before it starts to actually be sustainable. And it's three, actually, which is. I thought it was a lot, but now after we've been doing the program for a few years, it's not a lot, because people are really into returning their empties.

Yeah, let's dig into that. So imagine I'm a customer. I'm on your very lovely website. I'm buying your face cleanser, for instance, in bulk size. And once I finished my bottle, I want to refill. So what happens next?

You go to our bulk aisle web page. It's a landing page on our website, and there's a little button that says, return your empties here. And you click it, you fill out your order number, and we get a notification. And essentially just we click a few buttons on our side and it sends you a label. You print it out and you return it. You know, pack it up however you will and return it. Hopefully you clean it before you send it back to us, because then it helps us. We still have to clean it and then sterilize it, but if there's not, like, bits of paste and stuff in. In it, you're kind of helping us to keep our costs down. So, like, hint, hint to all the customers. And one of the unexpected perks of doing this has been that we have this little wall in our shipping area at work where we have taped all of these sweet, sweet notes that people write to us when they send it back, because they're sending us mail, you know. And so it's been nice to be on the receiving end of notes in packages too, because we send out a lot of packages but don't often receive brands, don't often receive them back. So people are so excited about participating and we get excited when they come back. It used to be that only a few would come in. Like in the beginning it was a really big deal and now we get like probably six to ten a day packages.

Cool. And then you've got your love wall obviously in the office where you can see all the outpouring of love from your customers. And then when you receive those bulk containers, what do you do next with them?

So they first go into a box in our shipping area and we let that box fill up and then it takes a whole day usually. And so there's like a three part cleaning program where we clean them of like actual debris and things like that. And then we clean them in a dishwasher or a sink for some of them, just like you would any dish. And then we put it through like a sterilizing process. We actually just got a really intense dishwasher and we're hoping that it's going to help us. And we're getting these like retrofitted trays for these new, this new packaging that we're going to be launching. So it's going to hopefully speed up the process of taking them back in, which then means that we can transfer that cost to the customer and offer an even better discount, which would be amazing.

What's the new packaging you're launching?

It's just going to be aluminum containers, but instead of especially for the skincare products right now there's like a neck that has these shoulders and so it's kind of really difficult to clean. So these are just completely straight up to the top wall. They're really slender, almost like you could picture like a metal test tube. So. And then they'll be printed so we won't have to label them anymore. That will cut down on some of our labor too, because our labor is, is actually like the most significant cost of the whole program. So there will be two different sizes, one for liquids and one for creams and they'll all be printed and then they're also all going to come in a box that will already have pre printed postage for return on it. So it's going to cut out that one part where you contact us for a label, hopefully increasing the amount of returns we get even more because there won't be as much of a barrier, though we will still provide labels because I think like the first person who would throw a box away, you know.

I totally get it. It's amazing though. I love hearing how you've embedded this in the very core, the very fabric of your company. And you knew from the start that this is what you wanted to do. And so you built it into the way you operate and the packaging that you've gone for and the pricing structure you've put together. And I think that's absolutely wonderful to hear. And I know that many of our listeners will be admiring the model that you've created as well. So you offer several different sizes for your products. You start with the Minis, then you have full, then you go all the way up to bulk. So why do you offer this range and how do you encourage your customers to then use their refills?

So the Minis are about us, about accessibility and a sort of cost share with a new customer. I don't think that they are purchased very often by loyal or returning customers, unless they need like a bottle for travel or something like that. But I say cost share because we, as a company, we're committed to making sure that everyone in our supply chain is being paid and that we're doing things as consciously as possible. And so there's no way that we can provide samples because we also make our own products. We're making things on a smaller scale than people think. It's very small scale. It's not actually that small scale. I'd say it's like somewhere in between, like a small scale brand. We're, we're medium sized, we just can't provide free samples. And we, we also, we think that when someone comes to us and buys a Mini size, they're investing in and committing to really trying it. It's not. If something is a free sample, they're not as mindful about it, perhaps. So we don't want things being thrown away and we want people to really want the thing and we don't necessarily want to encourage people to buy more, which is probably like. Honestly, every, like professional marketing person I've worked with has had like a really hard time wrapping their head around not upselling people. You know, it's a fine line. Like, we definitely want, if you're buying a face oil, we definitely want to talk to you about toner, but we don't want to tell you that you have to buy it or anything like that. So the mini sizes are a way of sort of sharing the responsibility of purchasing something and you can have a little taste. And that taste actually lasts about four weeks for most of them. So you can really see how it works with your skin. The full sizes exist. There's a part of me that like could see us potentially, like, what if we got rid of full sizes someday and just went from like mini to bulk and maybe like increased the size of the mini a tiny bit or something so that it was more manageable on a day to day thing. But the full sizes exist for wholesale because of the cost prohibitive nature of having to reduce your prices to sell to stores. And then the bulk sizes exist for all the reasons that I said before. Yeah, I've often, I mean, Jeff and I, my partner and I often talk like we really are critical of the brand itself, like meow, meow, tweet. As for all of the things that we want to do, we are often like, should we even be making products? You know, And I think that that's why we're so attracted to doing bulk, because we view it as service, part product thing. Like we need products. Right. If we can kind of help our customers to like move toward something that is less sustainable. I mean, more sustainable. Less sustainable. I think that that's the reason it's most attractive. And it's definitely a struggle when it comes from a PR standpoint because every brand is always launching something new. And it's really important that you always have something new because that's the only thing that PR ever really talks about. Right.

Drives me nuts.

Yeah. So I've had meetings with retailers recently also where the first question is, what do you have new coming up? And I'm just like, you know what we said a couple of years ago that we're not launching anything new without being very, very careful and conscious about whether it has a place within the market, within our brand. And so we're just kind of like improving stuff. We have a new packaging, like we're redoing the entire lines, packaging actually, and the next going to launch in a couple months. And it was a good opportunity to dig back into formulas that we'd already had that I knew had some ingred that we're becoming more difficult to stand behind in terms of sustainability and stuff like that. But we've also been trying to develop ways of being more flexible with that as well.

I think your business model will ultimately stand the test of time, because you have embedded sustainability and doing the right thing at its core. And you're right. I mean, it just can't continue with journalists constantly asking, what are you launching next? And retailers not putting in place sustainability criteria. And, you know, I've picked quite a lot of this on the podcast, but it's an endless discussion because it's just everywhere. But let's, let's come back to the bulk refills, because I think what you're doing is fascinating. What percentage of your sale do you think consists of the bulk refills that you. You stock?

Oh, I wish I had a for sure number, but just from the production numbers, it's about 30% right now.

You obviously send those direct to customer, but you also sell them to refill stores, and then you expect those to come back. So what percentage would you say come back from your customers and from the retailers that you work with?

So for customers, about half comes back, though they have a significant shelf. They last a long time. I mean, it's a lot of product. So I think that there's a possibility that we're still measuring that, but right now it seems to be about half. And then with our stores, 100% come back. But a lot of that is that it's free, too. It doesn't cost anyone anything. It only costs them a moment of their time, which is a cost. I don't want to undermine that. People's time is definitely a resource.

Yeah. But nonetheless, obviously you've made it easy for them. And I think that's, you know, half of the solution there, really, isn't it? You've also integrated a subscription model into your business, which I think is also fascinating. So how does that work with the refilling system? Do you have to wait for someone to return the container before you send out the next one? How does that work?

No. So it would seem that the container that you buy for yourself or face oil would be your container forever, but it's not. It's actually our container forever. And you're renting it with the product inside. That's how I've been trying to explain it recently. So you essentially get the bottle with the face oil, you use the face oil, and then you send it back to us. We clean it, fill it back up with face oil, and then sell it to the next person who wants a bulk face oil. And in the meantime, you have no downtime. So you're able to, if you have a subscription, you're able to get your subscription in a timely manner. So you get your next bottle, you use the last little bit of the other bottle, you send us the old bottle, and you already have a new one waiting for you. There's no downtime because we also make products that are about being used on a daily basis. I think that that's important, that people don't have to wait or run out.

Has the subscription model been quite popular with your customers?

Yeah, I mean, it's. It's kind of the best deal because you also get 10% off when you subscribe. So it means that you're essentially getting 20% off of your favorite product, like per ounce. And it's easy. So if you're already, like, into the bulk, you know that you're going to be using the product all the time. It's funny because I actually am not subscribed to anything, so I think that subscriptions. Oh, actually I am subscribed to a book club, but I'm not subscribed even to my vitamins. You'd think I take the same vitamins all the time, but I think I'm just not the target audience for a subscription. So I think that some people are into it and some people aren't into it. But for those that are, it's really nice because then we can offer them. We know that they're coming back again and again, again and again, so we can offer them more value.

Well, you obviously have built up a very loyal customer base as a result of this. And actually thinking about them, do you find that you attract customers to you who have already bought into the refill revolution, or do you think that you're changing hearts and minds for people who haven't necessarily even thought about refills?

Because I feel that it's more the latter. I actually think that a lot of our customers that either come to us just to try something, like they like our price points and they like our approach to formulating or something, then get really attached to one of our products, and then they're just even more tickled that they get to buy a bulk item or the customer. We actually have customers that have been with us for a really long time. So when our bulk program launched, it right away had legs with people because we launched the things that we already had loyal customers with, and we spoke directly to them, actually emailed some of them and ran the options through with them. And we were like, would this be something attractive to you? And they were like, oh, yes, definitely.

Wow. Well, that. I mean, that makes it even more special because if you're Actually changing hearts and minds in the process. Then you will be educating your customers to want this from other brands they buy from as well. And hopefully that will obviously force more people to start thinking about the circular economy and how it works in their lives. So I find that bit in itself very exciting because I suppose if you were just attracting people to you who had already bought into it, then you're almost sort of preaching to the converted. But this way you're reaching a whole new audience that hadn't necessarily thought about it before.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I wonder if people who are already into bulk and into refills are the ones that are able to, like, take the time and go to that local refill shop and maybe they're refilling Meow Meow Tweet at those shops, but those are the people who, like, have that already written into the way that they schedule their time and their lifestyle. And so I really do think that our bulk refill program on our website is about helping the people who don't have that time or the opportunity, because there isn't a bulk store near them have access to that and to kind of, like, make it as easy as possible and possibly, like, turn them onto it. For sure. Like you said, the converted.

Yes, exactly. Well, I think you've built something very special here. So I guess the question is, and obviously I'm not a retailer or a journalist, but what is next for Meow Meow Tweet?

So we have our new packaging coming out in the next couple of months, and we're digging in further with the design of the bulk packaging. As I mentioned before, we have a sort of commitment to going deeper and not getting bigger. And so one of the things that we're hoping to do within the next couple of years is, is to open our facility to other brands that are interested in offering a similar refill model. And essentially, we wouldn't actually make the product, we would just pack the product for them. So they would have their manufacturer make the bulk product, send it to us, and then we would fill it into containers and also accept their containers back. So we could actually extend this as a service to other brands. I feel like that's like my retirement plan. Like, if we. I don't know if we can just, like, do that, then I can kind of feel better about what we're doing too, because I. I don't want to keep growing Meow Meow Tweet and keep putting more and more products out. I mean, I could make a million products I love making products, but I really question that for us. And so I get really excited by the idea and community building and support, like mutual support and things like that. So that's like our big dream right now.

Well, that is an amazing big dream to have. You have built an incredible business. I love everything you stand for. I know our listeners will too. So if people want to follow Meow Meow Tweet and you to find out more about you and buy your formulations, buy your bulk refills, where can they do that? Meowmeowtweet.com Are you on social media anywhere?

Yeah, we're on Instagram, TikTok. Not Twitter. We don't do Twitter despite our name.

Fair enough. We'll include all of those links in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Tara for coming on the podcast today. It's been a real privilege talking to you.

Yes, thank you so much for having me. I was so thrilled to be contacted and I'm so happy to talk to you about this.

Thank you. As you can tell, I'm exploring circularity in more detail on the podcast this year and I hope that you're as inspired as I am when listening to Tara. Her story and vision for their brand is wonderful and I think more beauty brands should champion these changes in our industry. I would love to hear your thoughts. So please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you. Thank you for joining Tara and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica at Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.