What started out as three conscientious Mumbai citizens'efforts to do their part in making this city a better place, galvanized within no time into a social business model that's going all out to make its consumers think, buy, use and dispose of products responsibly. The idea of Be Eco, a brand of eco-friendly alternatives to daily-use products in the home and kitchen category, took seed when Aditya and Anuj Roya were on one of their regular beach clean-up drives on Jaupati sometime in 2018. One of the Sundays where I was with my father and my brother, we saw a food wrapper which looked quite fresh. And I looked into it and it felt quite intriguing. And I asked my father, have you seen this before?
And he said that it's actually of a chocolate which was discontinued in the 1990s. So the fact that this had survived for so long really shook us. When it comes to products in the home and kitchen category, Blastichine. in paper still rule the roost, despite the massive carbon footprint left by both.
While one is non-biodegradable, the other leads to rampant deforestation. This also happens to be one of the categories where users dispose most. It was 15 months of rigorous R&D that helped the founders of BeEco arrive at what would be their key differentiator.
Bamboo, the raw material used for the majority of BeEco's products. So bamboo is actually a grass. Once you harvest it, it grows back again in four years and you don't need to replant it as compared to trees.
Also, bamboo takes in less water and gives out 20% more oxygen in a forest. Other than that, bamboo is carbon neutral. It actually takes in the same amount of carbon. gives out. So that's a very, the carbon footprint of bamboo is zero.
So hence bamboo is a very versatile plant which can be used in a variety of range of products be it the paper and pulp industry. It can also be used to make biofuels and compostable plastics. The poor man's timber as it is also called, bamboo has always been intrinsically linked to lives and livelihoods in India. The northeastern states in particular have close to 60 varieties of the plant.
Driving a company like B. to source directly from these states. In India close to 9 million people depend on bamboo for their livelihood with total production going up to 5 million tons a year. However despite its enormous potential as a renewable resource, India hasn't been able yet to utilize the plant to its capacity. A course that would not only work towards building a greener economy, but also help the economically weaker sections that largely depend on bamboo resources.
In 2018, the government took some measures towards course correction, directing $200 million to the bamboo sector. Moreover, with companies like Be Eco, that is focusing on single-use, home-based, and home and kitchen bamboo products, a first for the category, things might just start looking up for the sector. When I look at the global market, there are players that are making use of these products. But when it comes to India, the category we are in is very unorganized.
It's very segmentized, localized. There are a lot of players in the market and they are sort of happy and content with what they're doing. No one wants to innovate.
That's why we've thought we also found this category very... appealing to us because there was nothing new happening in this category. Depending on environmental conditions, Beco's products are set to degrade between 2 to 6 months.
They are also priced at a 10 to 15% premium to existing non-green players. A comparatively cheaper price placement than other organic brands. The product is 100% green product. The manufacturing is completely green.
There is no sense of product or substance that is used that will harm the environment. But the one thing that we are hoping to increase or people to increase with us is the logistics. For logistics, people are using a lot of plastic to wrap the goods with, or the cartons and the whole goods with the plastic.
because, now the rainy season is also coming. So, people like and it is very convenient for them to use plastic in this manner. We are hoping to get a material which will help.
substitute the plastic in the wrapping form. Today, Beeco products are available in more than 1500 stores in Mumbai and 300 in Bangalore and have seen a 30% growth in recent months. Rahul Pabreja, who runs this chain of fairly sourced organic products, including those from Beeco, confirms that there seems to have been a definite shift towards buying organic. Definitely there is an increased uptake in the use of greener products. Yes, the problem is a little bit about the price, but I think people need to understand that it is better for the environment and better for our health and the health of the planet.
The founders of Veeco take pride in the fact that they have steered clear of all paid marketing channels, positioning themselves as removed from an out-and-out commercial enterprise. Where we feel that it always has to be a cooperative environment, especially in a country. like India where we feel that companies as well as individuals as well as the government have to play a role together to bring about change.
Beko is just the mother of what we do but eventually looking at sanitizing stations, looking at plastic recycling plants, looking at all of our products which we are launching today helping consumers become more eco-friendly.