Releaf Paper: Branching out of Ukraine and exploring biowaste beyond fallen leaves

04 Mar 2024 --- Releaf Paper has persevered and expanded its reach to European markets despite facing challenges, such as Russia’s war on Ukraine. Valentyn Frechka, the chief technology officer and co-founder of Releaf Paper, sits down with Packaging Insights to discuss the company’s journey since winning the European Commission’s EIC Accelerator 2022 program and branching out of Ukraine.

Frechka discusses the company’s future plans, including scaling up production and exploring new sources of biowaste for fiber production.

Releaf won an EU grant in 2022, how have things progressed for the company since?
Frechka: The grant is €2.5 million (US$2.7 million) a year that we can spend to establish our pilot facilities and to improve our current product and technology to be able to fundraise the next level. The remaining €7.5 million (US$8.1 million), we can raise to finalize the production site where we will be able to process the leaves and to pursue a production of the fibers for 100% leaf-based paper.

We are working on the pilot lab scale equipment, also focusing on the technology development, hiring different people to help us to go to market. We are developing our micro market strategy and trying to protect our technology from different angles, through IP protection. 

This is a very complex project. And it’s not only about establishing pilot facilities. We have the grant money, that will help us to be ready to fundraise more money, bringing us more credibility and stability on the market. We will know who our customers are, which segment to target, what is an affordable price, and also to determine our weaknesses. So that’s what we are doing right now here in France. 

What is the market and industry like in Ukraine as the Russia war continues?
Frechka: This episode in the Releaf history is very painful. We as Ukrainians have tried to do this business in Ukraine because everything started from there. But since then, everything has happened. The main decision was to concentrate our focus on exporting to the European markets but with outsourcing production in Ukraine. All our subcontractors are so brave and durable. They still produce this paper and support us. It’s really helped us to be present on the market at the same time as fundraising money. 

But after one and a half years, we realized that we can also do the same for the Ukrainian market. We decided to launch there what we have in Europe, because plenty of people could not purchase our products, as they are only for European countries. So we thought that it’s not really okay for us. And yeah, we separated the team to establish a new channel of selling our products to Ukrainian customers. 

We already see an interest from the B2B segment from the huge potential customers, including supermarkets and different big shops, but also small customers who are using the packaging for their businesses. In Ukraine, there is a huge community of entrepreneurs like candle makers or craft goods suppliers, and they are so happy to use our paper packaging. I think developing business in Europe and still having our sourcing as well as the selling channel in Ukraine is one of the ways we can support our country. Mailer bag from the Releaf Fallen Leaf collection.

What challenges have come across in two years of development and how has Releaf overcome them?
Frechka: First of all, we are very flexible, and that’s the key tool for my partner, team and me. Everything is changing very fast — there’s a war, we need to find potential partners where we get the leaves, a lot of challenges that we need to face — but we’re flexible, we are open, we’re friendly. We also have critical thinking for what is affordable for us. 

But the main challenge, I think it’s since we have come to Europe, it has been quite difficult to understand what we can provide for this market without having our facilities. And to create the current model that we have, we spend a lot of energy and time and it’s always changing. We change the strategy based on the feedback that we’re getting from the partners and from the clients. It’s very important to remember the key points: what we should do, what we shouldn’t do and how to spend money because it is limited. 

And the second one is communication. Europe is different regarding ecological products. That’s why for us, it was difficult to understand how to explain what Releaf does — that we are not gathering leaves from forests, we are not using harmful glues to glue these leaves together to make the paper. 

It was the main challenge — move to Europe, find the market and find a strong stable source of leaves and partners.

Where do you source your leaves from and what is the technology behind your packaging material?
Frechka: The concept was born because I wanted to help the paper industry decrease consumption of the roots for making paper. That was the original idea but after I realized that it was successful, we started scaling up the project.  We get the leaves from cities because every year thousands of tons are generated and people don’t know what to do with it. You can make compost only from a few percent of that total amount of the leaves. You also cannot burn it. So that’s a good solution for me as an entrepreneur who wants to turn the leaves into paper. 

I’m providing this paper as a form of solution for the paper and pulp industry. Mainly, we gather leaves from cities with the help of our partners who have the infrastructure to collect these leaves. After processing the leaves into paper, currently, we are operating in France, and our pilot site will also be here. That’s our European production heart.

At this moment, we are making this paper in a composition with recycled fibers. We’re accepting the leaves from big cities on our site, we process the leaves with a special fibers mechanical filler, and after we mix this filler with the fibers from the recycling paper stream. So at the end, we have a mix of these two ingredients and the final product. In October 2020, Releaf Paper produced its first batch of paper made from leaves collected from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Why do we do that? Because we are currently not able to produce the pure virgin cellulose fiber to produce the big paper reels. That’s why we separated the technology into two stages. Now we are implementing the first stage and soon we will produce our paper from 100% leaves. 

Right now, we’re accepting leaves, separating from the solid waste by washing, drying and then making the fiber filler — particles from the leaf blades and leaf petioles — that we can transform into functional filler. And in the final paper, we can achieve improved mechanical and adaptive properties. 

Also, this paper looks very interesting because the structure of the surface looks unique — you can recognize that this paper was made from leaves. You can see the small particles that we isolated from the leaf petioles and leaf veins.

What is in the pipeline for Releaf?
Frechka: The leaves are just the tip of the iceberg. It started with leaves but on the way we realized the huge potential of other kinds of biowaste, such as tomatoes, cucumbers and other kinds of biowaste, including pineapple leaves, tropical leaves and waste from hemp processing.

Currently, the percentage of these markets are low, but I believe that, since we started our pilot and after our big scale production, we could demonstrate to the paper industry that we are the company that’s providing alternative fibers. 

At the start, it will be a bit more expensive — not more than 10% — but it will be the sustainable alternative for wood fibers. And what is most exciting here is that we can build a big empire of processing factories, which will use this biowaste and turn it into alternative fibers for the paper and pulp industry.

By Radhika Sikaria