No Longer Boxed In: How U.S. Startup Boox Is Revolutionising Cardboard Packaging

Boxed In

My daughter's garage is a graveyard of cardboard boxes. Odd Boxes, once home to misshapen vegetables and fruit rejected by supermarkets, Amazon deliveries, baby equipment, even a washing machine box. The fortnightly Council recycling collection barely makes an imprint so every so often, my son-in-law loads up the car, and generates a few more carbon emissions by driving it all off to the recycling centre.

The trouble is, cardboard may seem better than plastic but its growing popularity brings its own problems. "Cardboard is becoming an increasingly big part of landfill. It's also made from trees," points out Matt Semmelhack, CEO of recycling company Boox.

We are living in a cardboard epidemic. In the U.K. alone, 4.2 billion parcels were sent out in 2020 and 2021. U.K. parcel volumes have risen by 33% since 2019, translating into 5.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard waste in 2020 alone, according to the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs.

Back in 2020, U.S. parcel volumes rose by 40%. The coronavirus pandemic may have accelerated the trend towards home delivery, but even if Covid-19 goes away, it's unlikely to end our love affair with it. And with rising timber prices and supply chain shortages, cardboard is costing more.

It's welcome then that Boox has a solution. Named as one of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of 2021,Boox makes boxes that can be folded up and sent back to be re-used. There's no tape, no labels, and so less waste. When a customer receives a box, they can simply scan the QR code which tells them how to send back the box in the greenest way – in practice to a store in the U.S. or – from today - to an In Post locker in the U.K.

Once received, boxes are sanitised and refurbished before being re-used. When the box reaches the end of its life, the corrugated polypropylene is broken down into plastic flakes, which are then turned into new Boox boxes – and potentially, other forms of packaging.

"The big vision is a system where things are re-used over and over again," says Semmelhack. "It could be any kind of material – it doesn't have to just be a cardboard box."

With Bob Walton, formerly Engineering Manager at Facebook, as CTO, Semmelhack launched Boox in 2019 in Petaluma, CA. He got the idea while working at Thistle.co, a plant-based meal delivery startup. Noticing how customers grew to resent their meal kits creating more waste than they saved and spotted a way for brands to play a part in ending single-use packaging and improve customer loyalty.

Matt Semmelhack

Boox makes money from the service fee it charges clients. Last year it organised over 100,000 shipments; this year the target is 1mn. The goal for 2023 is 10,000,000 reusable shipments in 2023.

In just over two years, Boox has acquired over 60 clients in the U.S., including skin care companies Cocokind and REN, as well as Boyish Jeans, and recently, Lulu Lemon on a pilot scheme. While early clients are skincare and fashion based, Semmelhack sees no reason why future clients won't include consumer electronics and furniture retailers – watch this space - and he isn't necessarily stopping at cardboard packaging either.

From today, Boox comes to the U.K., sending out and re-using packaging for REN, the Unilever-owned company, from a plant it's sharing in Grimsby with local packaging company, Tri-Pack. The Lincolnshire port town is also home to the world's largest offshore wind farm. The aim is to do at least 250,000 shipments in the U.K. over the rest of the year.

If this catches on, it won't just be my family who benefit. It could be transformative for smaller companies. As Semmelhack explains, "It's been a burden on smaller companies to go green with packaging. The cost of using one of our boxes is only 5 – 10% more than a single use box. We’re working hard to close that gap to zero. There's going to be an inflexion point when it's no longer more expensive to re-use a box."

Success, however, depends on consumer behaviour. How does Semmelhack know it's going to work? "It's all down to reducing waste," he replies, "and the growing desire to do so. We’re starting to monetise the return trip by encouraging customer loyalty. If you incentivise the consumer to return the box, say by giving them 10% off on their next purchase, you can improve the return rate."

When a customer receives a Boox box, they’re given a couple of days to enjoy it. Then they’ll receive an email from Boox with any offers and instructions on how to return the box.

Easy to fold, easy to assemble

In the U.S., consumers return their Boox boxes to local store drop-off points. In the U.K., it needs to be an In Post locker. My nearest one in London was two minutes away; out of town this wekeend it was three miles. The cost of using the Royal Mail would have been four times as high.

The company is on track to make over $10m annual recurring revenue by the end of 2022, based on the monthly run rate. If the U.K. launch goes well, Semmelhack plans to expand into Canada by the end of 2022, then into Western Europe and Australia in 2023. The goal is 10,000,000 reusable shipments in 2023.

Boox raised $9.25M in a Series A funding round led by Valor Siren Ventures, with participation from Wave Capital, Village Global, and Kid VC in June 2021. The company also previously raised a $2 million seed from Wave Capital, giving it total funding of just over $11 million.