Melbourne-based material science packaging company Great Wrap (registered as Plantabl Packaging on ASIC) has entered into voluntary administration, with a reported $39 million in debt.

The company, started by husband-and-wife team Jordy and Julia Kay, was founded in 2019 with a mission to end the human reliance on traditional plastics.

Their former careers in winemaking and architecture led to them creating the business when they recognised the sheer impact plastic waste was having on land. As such, they started inventing compostable materials and products including compostable hand and machine pallet wraps.

Last year, the company partnered with Opal A/NZ to distribute Australian made compostable pallet wrap.

However, following years of financial losses, the company has spiralled into debts and appointed Shane Justin Cremin and Brent Leigh Morgan as administrators.  

In a post, co-founder Jordy Kay said, “In light of the current circumstances and that we have arrived at the conclusion of the Great Wrap story, we wanted to share a statement and a thank you to those who supported us on this journey. We also thought it was an opportunity to put into words a reflection on the path to this point in time.

“My wife, and co-founder, Julia and I made the first sale of the Great Wrap product all the way back in 2019. In 2020, we launched our direct-to-consumer brand… resulting in 30,000 orders in the first month. Customers loved the vision and impact Great Wrap could make.

“On the back of the media campaign, we received hundreds of inbound corporate enquiries. We had RFQs with the retailers and trials underway. We had the biggest FMCG companies begging for our product.

“During the building phase, we had the amazing support of our investors and team with constant introductions and opportunities. We set up a well-known brand and eventually a high-performing product that competed perfectly against decades of innovation from the petrochemical stretch wrap industry.

“What also began to happen is that time is that markets shifted away from compostable packaging for stretch wrap. Retailers and FMCG companies shifted strategy from replacing fossil-fuel plastics with compostable alternatives to vertically integrating their own plastic recycling operations.

“This meant the pipeline slowly subsided and demand weakened. We pushed on and grew the business to hundreds of enterprise customers and distributors but that wasn’t enough to sustain the overheads of a plant to support a much larger vision.

“During this time we knew we needed to move into bigger markets so we originated opportunities in the US market. Sadly, a combination of being unable to get the Australian plant to break even meant we ran out of time and capital to pursue the US expansion.

“Julia and I believed so strongly in this business, and I feel I have tried everything I could to make it a success. This isn’t the outcome any of our customers, team and investors wanted, and I can honestly say that I am sorry that the outcome wasn’t different. There are decisions made in hindsight that I would do differently and I will spend a long time analysing the past six years. It has been an honour to work with our amazing team,  customers and investors over the past few years and I cannot thank you enough for the support in building Great Wrap.”

Jordy added that the duo will continue to support the administrators as they go through the voluntary administration process to sell all equipment and materials, and will do their best to have all creditors repaid in full.