ABOUT ZUME

• Zume started its life in 2017 as a robotics company focused on automating pizza making, raising USD 423 million by late 2018 at a billion dollar valuation.
• However, in its quest to perfect pizza delivery, the company identified existing pizza boxes as both unsustainable and ineffective, and started focusing more on creating single-use food packaging that was sustainable and could match plastic incumbents in both price and performance.
• In November 2021, Zume partnered with multinational robotics company ABB to install more than 1,000 Moulded Fibre manufacturing cells over the next five years, with each cell able to process up to two tons of agricultural waste a day, translating into an output of up to two billion pieces of packaging each year.
• Zume has partnerships with distributors and manufacturers in more than 25 countries worldwide, with its main manufacturing partners being Jefferson Enterprise Energy in the US, and Satia Industries and Parason in India. The company expanded into Europe, in May 2022, with its moulded fibre coffee cup lids, which are available in Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.
• Zume also partnered with chemicals producer Solenis, in August 2021, to launch Contour, a PFAS-free grease and water-resistant coating. Interestingly, the companies open-sourced the recipe and process on FreeFromPFAS.com, so that all manufacturers of food packaging can replicate it.
• Other partners include Packme Ltd, Seamlessly Ltd, Transcend Packaging, Rausch Verpackung GmbH, Eocrep SARL, Codensa, Ultra Pac and more.
• Its current business model is focused on creating a turnkey production platform for manufacturing for partners to produce high-performance, compostable moulded fibre single-use food packaging at scale, from agricultural waste feedstocks, such as bagasse, bamboo, wheat and straw.
• The company says it is able to prototype a new solution within two to four weeks and its products are ASTM D6868-certified compostable.