Every day approximately eight million pieces of plastic enter our ocean. More than 50% of these plastics are single-use, meaning they’ve served a one-time purpose and were promptly discarded.
A highly popular single-use plastic is cling film.
Cling film is a thin sheet of plastic that is often used for food storage to prolong freshness. While it’s quite convenient to rip off a small section, wrap it around your half-eaten tomato, and quickly throw it away when you need the food again, this food storage tactic can become extremely wasteful.
Recognizing the abundance of excessive waste, Patricia Figueiredo de Azevedo and Federico Zanetti, international fashion and food business couple, embarked on their own journey to solve this issue and mitigate the plastic crisis. Soon, they developed SUSSO, a homeware brand that specializes in Beeswax Wraps to use in lieu of cling wrap.
We found their products remarkably innovative, so we’ve added SUSSO to our Eco Marketplace and spoke with the founders to learn more.
Q: How was the brand developed?
Patricia and Federico: The brand was born in the beginning of 2020. We are a family business; I’m Italian (Federico) and Patricia is Brazilian. We both had international working experiences. I have worked mainly in the food sector and Patricia in the fashion one. When we decided to move to Italy, we were looking for a more sustainable way of living that we always shared as philosophy. Meanwhile, I continued to work for another company and Patricia started research for a business opportunity in this field. Then one day we discovered these amazing products, which are the bees wraps. We loved it so much that we started producing them for ourselves and friends at home. We perceived that the product had great potential, and that it could be personalized in our way, an easy handcrafted production. That was SUSSO’s first steps.
Q: What is the meaning behind the brand’s name?
P & F: SUSSO is the acronym of Sustainable Solutions. We always wanted a name that was not strictly associated with the beeswax wraps for possible future development of products. We wanted a funny name and at the same time a meaningful one. We came up with this name on a family trip and we liked it a lot so we stuck with it.
Q: What are the ethos of SUSSO?
P & F: SUSSO’s ethos have always been focused on respecting raw materials throughout the production process. We’re always trying to minimize our impact as a producer by working with local producers and collaborating with people who also want to do something to change the future of the planet.
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Q: What is the production process of SUSSO products? What makes it truly sustainable?
P & F: Our beeswax wraps are produced in our studio in Padova, Italy. The production is 100% handmade and we buy our beeswax from a local producer. The most important thing in comparison with other brands is that almost all the fabrics we use for our production come from discarded materials of industries and local stores.
We follow our core ethical objectives: reducing utilization of raw materials, reducing waste during the process of production, and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.
What makes us more sustainable than other companies is our use of fabric that would be discarded and that our raw materials come from local producers. Also, we do not use plastic in any of our processes. We only use recycled kraft paper to produce product packaging.
Q: What positive impact have SUSSO products had on the environment so far?
P & F: We have already been in touch with many happy customers that decided to make the switch to more sustainable food storage products. This means a lot to us because we know that many people are choosing to change and thinking primarily on the benefit for the environment.
Speaking in terms of pollution avoided, one kit of our beeswax wraps is equal to 20 rolls of cling film, so if we consider that a roll is on average 50 m length, we can save almost 1 Km of plastic from being wasted.
Q: What has been the most rewarding part of the brand’s fruition?
P & F: What is most gratifying for us in this journey is that SUSSO is not just a business, it is a dream that for us is coming true and our products have an ethical and moral value that we believe in so much. Nowadays, the green economy has become a big marketing ploy that for many companies means more profit. For us who believe in a change in collective thinking, the green economy is the salvation of a society that is sick and consuming more than it should. Our products have great durability and are part of a local circular economy where we and local producers benefit from being part of this network.
Q: What can we expect to see in the future from SUSSO?
P & F: What to expect from SUSSO in the future is that this small company will play its part in the new, sustainable world. We also have in mind some new products to launch that are equally sustainable with greater durability than the plastic, convenient ones.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com. — In the Featured Photo: SUSSO Beeswax Wrap. Featured Photo Credit: Impakter Eco.
