Narayana Peesapaty – The Anti-Plastic Crusader

<<Previous Page

EXCERPTS

THE TWIN CHALLENGES

Peesapaty was deeply concerned about the rapidly growing usage of plastic in general and disposable plastic cutlery in particular. Being a scientist, he had a clear insight into the perils that the disposed plastic could pose to the environment, people, and the Earth. His research showed him that India alone contributed 120 billion pieces of plastic cutlery to waste. About 40 million tonnes of plastic cutlery were thrown every year in India, and it needed about 1000 years for these to break down. His studies focused primarily on three countries – India, the USA, and Japan – which were among the major users of disposable plastic cutlery..

or or PayPal (7 USD)

THE EUREKA MOMENT...

Peesapaty was struck by an idea, which was to become his life-mission, while he was traveling from Ahmedabad to Hyderabad in 2005. He saw a co-traveler using his Khakhra as a spoon to eat rice with. Peesapaty wondered how it would be if there was cutlery that could be used to eat with and be eaten too...

TEETHING TROUBLES

Peesapaty had a clear vision. However, he had to examine the feasibility of his idea, and assess whether there was a market to commercialize his idea...

GOING GOOD…

Bakeys, under Peesapaty, gained ground gradually. It took about six years of marketing for him to attain success in form of inquiries from prospects. After about seven years of patience and perseverance since founding Bakey’s, Peesapaty claimed with pride that he started receiving inquiries from within as well as outside India...

THE ROAD AHEAD

Though Peesapaty had come up with a successful product, he was still not able to fulfill his goal of substituting plastic cutlery with it. Pricing was a major challenge. With the existing demand and the scale of production, the edible cutlery could not be priced at less than $0.03 per piece, whereas plastic cutlery was available at half the price...