Can Reju Solve The Outdoor Industry's Sustainability Problem?
- colin7931
- May 30
- 33 min read
Today on the show Colin is joined by the CEO of Reju, Patrik Frisk.
Started in 2023, Reju is a "textile regeneration company" that is trying to create a circular system for polyester by taking existing polyester garments and turning them back into reusable polyester components that apparel brands can then make into new garments.
On today's episode of The Rock Fight Patrik talks about the mission of the brand, the challenges they face, and the need for these kinds of innovative solutions to solve our textile waste problem.
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Episode Transcript:
Colin True
00:00:00.160 - 00:01:53.840
All right, folks, time to set the record straight. A few weeks back, listeners heard me rant on about a new sandal from Lem's Shoes.
That sandal, the new Switchback sandal, is a classic single strap, single post style that I, without much knowledge, accused of being just like someone else. What I wasn't informed on was Lem's unique take on making footwear. And let's just say a few rocks were thrown back at me.
And rightly so, because Lem's has really elevated the design of minimalist natural movement footwear, anatomically correct zero drop comfort and lightweight outdoor performance.
And the Switchback, crafted from a single piece of material and features a unique single strap design with one buckle for super ease of use, added comfort and getting it on outside. You can go get yourself a pair right now@lemshoes.com where you'll also find that LEMS is running a 20% off sale from now until May 11th.
Oh, and hey retailers, did you know that Lemz is looking for wholesale partners? Hit them up@supportemssshoes.com to add a little flavor to your shoe wall.
And be sure to stop by and say hi to the Lemz team at their booth at Switchback in Nashville this June.
Check out the new Switchback sandal and all of Lem's shoes by heading over to lemshoes.com welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin True, and today we're looking at a real possible solution to sustainability.
But before we get to that big week here on the Rock Fight, go back to this past Monday's episode to hear us name the top five outdoor apparel brands of the moment. And then head back to this past Wednesday's episode and you'll get Doug Schnitzbahn and I taking a look at the current health of outdoor media.
Lastly, are you heading to Switchback in June?
If so, come hang out with producer Dave, come hang out with Owen Comerford, come hang out with Shante Salibair, and come hang out with me when we record a live episode of the Rock fight on Tuesday, June 17th at 5 o' clock in the trailheads Theater. Hope to see you there. All right, we'll be right back.
Chris DeMakes
00:01:55.440 - 00:01:57.360
Rock Fight. Rock Fight.
Colin True
00:01:59.430 - 00:04:40.320
Hey everyone, before we keep going here, I need to tell you about our teammates at Darby Communications. Like I've been telling you, if you run an outdoor, an endurance or an active lifestyle brand.
There is no better PR and digital marketing belay partner or drinking buddy than Darby. They can help your business reach new heights and they might just keep you from falling on your ass.
Since we started working with Darby, more and more people, and this is an important point now. Guys, I want you to hear me on this. More and more people have reached out to us here at the Rock Flight because of that messaging.
Look, guys, I'm dead serious. If they can help us, they can help anybody. Hit them up@darbycommunications.com do it today.
The heart of the issue of sustainability in the outdoor industry is a lack of patience. Consumers want to be absolved for the purchases they want to make.
Brands want solutions, but not if they cost more and not if they have to wait more than one development cycle to get them.
Innovative solutions to anything takes time and investment, but the pressures of the seasonal calendar we are all privy to here in the outdoor industry is relentless. I've always thought that it would have to take government legislation and regulation to make any meaningful changes.
New rules that would dictate what was needed and thus allow for our apparel and gear makers to invest in the time needed to fund and develop bigger solutions that would allow us to move on from petroleum as the primary source of much of what we make. And we've seen glimpses of that with California's Responsible Textile Recovery Act.
But I never thought I'd see an independent organization take much action because because of the cost and the timelines that would both be massive.
And then in the fall of 2023, I started hearing about Riju, a new company that was looking at taking existing polyester garments and turning them back into new raw materials. Former president of Timberland and former Under Armour CEO Patrick Frisk was named the CEO of this new venture.
And I was of course, immediately dubious, not because of Patrick, but because of the promises they were making. I mean, most of these kinds of initiatives in the past had carried more bluster than results.
But over the past 18 months, more news came out about RIJU that started to show me that they might be legit.
And now earlier this month, Reju announced their second regeneration facility that promises to take 300 million articles of clothing and turn them back into polyester that can then be converted into yarn and fabrics. And this all sounds promising, but does Reju have the funding in the stomach for how long this whole thing will take?
Well, Patrick Frisk is here on the show with me today to dig into who Reju is and how they are planning to solve the Problems that so far, no one has had the patience to solve. Solved. So, welcome back to the Rock Fight, where today it's can riju Solve the Outdoor Industry Sustainability Problem with Patrick Frisk.
All right, well, we are here with Patrick Frisk, the CEO of Reju. Is it Reju or Reju? Is that a hard J?
Patrik Frisk
00:04:40.800 - 00:04:45.680
It's a hard J because it's rejuvenate. Right? So it comes from the word rejuvenation.
Colin True
00:04:46.400 - 00:04:48.400
There it is. Well, welcome to the show, Patrick.
Patrik Frisk
00:04:49.010 - 00:04:50.370
Thank you very much. Happy to be here.
Colin True
00:04:50.850 - 00:05:07.170
We are catching you when you're in the midst of a kind of a crazy travel schedule. You're currently in New Hampshire, which is funny. Like, we never overlapped. I was at Timberland prior to your tenure there.
But you did some time at Timberland as well, which I assume that's why you have an establishment in New Hampshire because of your Timberland time.
Patrik Frisk
00:05:07.730 - 00:05:13.810
Yes, that's true. And actually we have a couple of ex Timberland people working at region now, which is also fantastic.
Colin True
00:05:13.810 - 00:05:14.930
Yeah. Diane Woods.
Patrik Frisk
00:05:15.400 - 00:05:15.800
Yes.
Colin True
00:05:16.120 - 00:05:16.920
Matt Allen.
Patrik Frisk
00:05:17.320 - 00:05:18.600
That's right. That's right.
Colin True
00:05:18.840 - 00:05:21.560
The famous one half of the famous Allen brothers.
Patrik Frisk
00:05:21.800 - 00:05:37.400
Yeah, that's true. That's true. And, you know, it's.
It's also true that, you know, when I work with Timbaland here, I work with some of the best people that I've ever worked with. So I thought if we're going to be establishing region in North America, why not start from where the great people are?
Colin True
00:05:37.720 - 00:06:05.490
That's a good. Definitely a pretty famous legacy up there in the Northeast in terms of footwear and other interesting outdoor brands as well. So.
Well, let's start with the big picture, right?
I think, you know, I've been mentioning to folks that you're going to come on the podcast, and riju is still relatively fresh name, kind of in at least the outdoor space.
And probably in general, like, a lot of what you're doing, I'm sure, is going around and kind of explaining what the purpose is, explaining who you guys are. So let's just start right there. You know, what is Reju? You. What is Reju's purpose?
Patrik Frisk
00:06:06.450 - 00:07:24.430
So our purpose is to unlock infinite possibilities within finite materials. That's actually our purpose, and that's why we exist. And we have also a very clear vision of a world designed to last. So let's just begin there.
I think for us, what we're trying to do is we're trying to address actually several different things and what's very normal in this industry, this not yet existing industry that we're hoping is going to become part of the textile future is the fact that we tend to talk about things in isolation.
So we talk about technology and then we talk about waste, and then we talk about, you know, the stuff that we're making and so forth, materials and what have you at region.
What we realized early on was the fact that, you know, you need to take a really systemic approach here, because the reality is a really big problem that we've caused as an industry is textile waste, and it's massive. So you need a technology, we believe, that can address that.
So, in other words, how do we take what we've got now as waste and turn it back into a resource?
And to be able to do that, you need to address the entire gap from waste and waste aggregation to when it's actually reintroduced back into the supply chain of the brands. And that's what we're here to do.
Colin True
00:07:25.390 - 00:08:01.640
Yeah, I like that you're describing it as almost something completely brand new. Right.
It says, sustainability is, for my money, the most overused, maybe a misunderstood word, maybe it's a nicer way of saying it in the outdoor space. You know, and I think we've learned. If we've learned anything that's at, you know, consumers aren't. It's a. It's a value add.
It's not something they're really seeking out in terms of how they make their buying decisions. You know, when you look back at, you know, we still laud, you know, the recycled content and things, right?
And, you know, well, you know, recycling plastic bottles into fibers happened in 1993. So, like, we've had that box checked for a while now.
Patrik Frisk
00:08:03.160 - 00:08:05.400
And I was there. I was there when that happened, so.
Colin True
00:08:05.880 - 00:08:06.940
Right, yeah.
Patrik Frisk
00:08:06.940 - 00:08:07.180
Yeah.
Colin True
00:08:07.180 - 00:08:54.110
Which, I mean, I don't think people would probably be shocked if they really. A lot of people don't know that would understand, like, hey, this is. This is something we've had for a while, and it's still.
It also is really only, you know, trading one problem for another because, like, hey, you need a bunch of plastic bottles in order to keep making these things. Right. So.
And honestly, you can make the case if you're going to recycle plastic bottles, you should recycle them into more plastic bottles, not into, you know, fiber. So.
But, you know, the thing that I think is interesting about the sustainability conversation, though, is everyone's kind of always looking for the quick fix, like, how do we check the box? Right. And so when I hear. When I originally heard about Redu, I'm like, hey, listen, I applaud, obviously, the mentality of, like, hey, let's create.
Let's take the waste and make it back into something. Like, make it into a new version of itself in a way. But, man, that's going to be a long haul, right? I mean, do you think.
Do you guys have the stomach for how long this is going to take?
Patrik Frisk
00:08:55.390 - 00:12:47.290
Yeah, I think that's absolutely correct. And I think.
Thank you for saying that because I think it's, again, this fragmentation that we have in the industry, right, is not used to coming together across the entire supply chain.
And I think sometimes for us that have worked in this industry, whether you're in footwear or in the textile, apparel or accessories, we all know that our industry is very complex and complicated, and we make things in a lot of different places.
But when you're trying to do something like this, you're now actually saying, okay, well, I'm going to replace what today is a linear model, which has been around for two generations or three, and I'm going to use a new raw material, which is, in this case, textile waste, and turn it into the same thing, right, in terms of the same material, polyester. And in doing so, I have to actually create that entire infrastructure build. I have to create the connectivity between the different dots.
So I have to create waste aggregation of textile at scale, which doesn't happen. I have to build sorting facilities that sort for fiber.
Not what we do today, which is 99.9% of all textile that's sorted today is done by hand for style and wearability.
I have to build the machinery and invest into infrastructure that can prepare the textile for recycling or regeneration, because you have to take out all the zippers and buttons and what have you to make sure you don't have any disruptors in the. In the chemical process. And then you got to build this monster of a unit that has capability to actually take.
Do the chemistry of taking apart all of these things that we've put together as an industry, all the mixes of materials and extract, in this case the polyester, and then go through an entire process of depolymerizing that down to its monomers. You're really talking about chemistry and molecules here.
And then get it into a different place and repolymerize it and make it into polyester again, that can be made into yarns and so forth. So it is a very large undertaking. It takes time to coordinate, it takes time to build.
And so by definition, it will be a long period of time before you have scale. What's important is that fact that you actually said it.
It's going to take time because the problem of course is we are aggregating, or let's say not aggregating, but we are creating waste at a very rapid pace. And the problem with what we're talking about here is it does not disintegrate by itself. So if we put it into the ground, it's going to stay there.
If we don't put it into the ground, we got one alternative, which is to burn it. We should of course try to resell it or rewear it, but there's limitations to that.
So unless we start to address this and make this a generational quest, we're going to be in even more trouble down the road. And I think what you're starting to see now is the system is starting to back up.
You know, we've been able to kind of ship this to faraway places out of, out of side auto mine kind of an approach. Well, you know, the chickens coming home to roost there. I don't think that's going to be necessarily possible for so much, much longer.
And the scale of this thing is also getting bigger. So yeah, I think staying power and resilience is going to be really important.
We believe that there's enough of us that have that in this emerging economy. But it also is going to take hard work. You know, you have to coordinate and you have to be willing to put in the work and of course the money.
Colin True
00:12:47.370 - 00:13:20.550
Yeah. You mentioned there's a lot of and thens in the way you're describing it. Right.
And then, and then, and then, and that's even before you have then your product, which you then have to sell to the people who are going to make the things out of the things that you are now making.
When you look at even the beginning part of that, I mean, how do you even conceive of the raw material, which in this case is, you know, finished polyester goods? You're pointing of all those. And then in terms of the processing, how do you start with, you know, just that slug of.
Of raw material that you'll need? Like how do you, how do you control your own supply chain? I guess is. Yeah, there's a lot. Right.
Patrik Frisk
00:13:20.550 - 00:15:11.930
We're making. You have to build a new one. Right. That doesn't really exist today. So I think in the U.S.
you know, one of the things I'm very proud of and it, I think it's super cool, is the fact that we together with Waste Management, one of the largest publicly traded Waste companies in the world, Goodwill, which is a non for profit. I think most people are familiar with that here in the US we sat down together and said, we've all got things that we want to tackle here and solve.
Waste Management, of course, is an expert in waste aggregation in general. And they of course, see the textile waste that's coming in greater and greater volumes.
They also realize that, you know, this is not going to disintegrate in their landfills and what have you. So, you know, we got to start to address this.
Goodwill, of course, you know, handles more textile than any other organization on earth as it relates to trading with textile. They have also an opportunity because they could take more textile.
And so here we are looking at, okay, let's make sure that we start to address one of the things that's the biggest opportunity in North America, which is the general waste stream, where you have about 80% of all textile being thrown away. And that's what we're doing right now. And I'm very excited.
We just started a few weeks ago in two cities in North America to pick up curbside together with Waste Management. They're then delivering that to Goodwill. They're sorting for wearability.
And then we get it down to a facility that Waste Management has built where we're sorting for fiber. And it's experimental at this stage, but it is the beginning.
And that's the kind of relationships that are highly unconventional, that did not exist before, that. We're going to need to get on with this.
Colin True
00:15:12.330 - 00:15:24.010
Is there a quality that you need to achieve in order?
Like in terms of the polyester you're looking for, or is it, you know, you can have the cheap, cheap, cheap stuff, or does it have to be kind of, oh, the good stuff, you know, like that we typically see in the outdoor space?
Patrik Frisk
00:15:24.250 - 00:17:35.580
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is the beauty of it.
So for me personally, and one of the reasons why I took on this, this challenge in this job was I realized you needed a technology that could address the problem. Right. So the problem isn't actually making textile yarn. That's not the problem.
The problem is taking what is today the problem of post consumer textile waste at great volumes. And this textile waste is of course, mixed.
If you say that you're going to address textile waste post consumer, and you open up your faucet, you're going to get everything, you know, you're going to get mix.
And if you take all of the textile that's being collected or that could be collected today in the US and all the tests that we've done so far, we see that the average mix is about 70, 30 poly cotton. So 70% polyester and 30% cotton, that's the general kind of average.
So you need a technology to be able to take 70, 30 polycotton if you want to be efficient. So our technology can do that. But that's only part of that big pile. Right.
Because you're also going to get 100% cotton, 100% this and that and whatever. So you need to make little piles of everything and then monetize or valorize those piles.
The good news is that the technology that we're using to depolarize and take care of the post consumer textile is the biggest pile and the biggest problem.
So yes, for us, what's exciting here is that we can start to attack the problem by addressing the biggest pile and the biggest part of the post consumer textile, which is the growing problem.
And I think when we look at this and I'm fascinated by the waste problem, something that I never thought I would be fascinated by, but I am now because we don't do the math. We talk about this kind of in an abstract, abstract way. You say like, oh, that's a lot of waste in one year, right? Yeah, but that's every year.
Colin True
00:17:36.140 - 00:17:36.740
Yeah. Right.
Patrik Frisk
00:17:36.740 - 00:17:43.700
So you can imagine it's like trying to stuff, I don't know, 75 million cars into the ground every year. I mean, how long can you continue to do that?
Colin True
00:17:43.700 - 00:18:02.850
Well, right. I mean, I was, I was going to say like, well, how. What happens if you polyester gets limited and there's not enough.
I listen, we're making whatever it is, 100 billion garments every single year.
You know, we have more garments in existence right now that could clothe the population of the planet for how many more years to come and have excess. Right. So that's probably not going to be a problem for you guys.
Patrik Frisk
00:18:03.250 - 00:18:05.890
No, actually we did the math. It's about six generations.
Colin True
00:18:06.130 - 00:18:07.410
So there you go.
Patrik Frisk
00:18:07.410 - 00:18:08.410
That's, that's a lot.
Colin True
00:18:08.410 - 00:18:26.930
Plenty of.
So how do in the stage though, to your point though, with so much you have to get to and so much you have to kind of figure out, like, you know, what's your plan? I mean, profitability I'm imagining is a little far in the future. Right. So how, you know, I imagine is this is a level of investment.
Is this private investment? Is it, you know, how is the, how do you stay in business?
Patrik Frisk
00:18:27.090 - 00:21:45.660
There is so the fortunate thing as it relates to profitability and, and the model is the fact that it Actually takes time to build it up.
Now we would all like to make it happen really quick, but because of all the ands and ands and ands and ands that you just talked about before, you actually need time for everything to scale. So if, if, if you suddenly would turn on the tap and have lots of availability, that might create, you know, a kind of a dysfunctional situation.
So the way to think about this is we need to coordinate aggregation, sorting, preparation, building of these quite large regeneration hubs, as we call them, and then also make sure that we can prepare the polymer makers, the polyester manufacturer that we also are doing to be able to make what comes out of these regeneration hubs and then make sure that the go to market works into the brands as well. So it is a stage coordinated effort that will be generational and to give you a sense of the scale of this thing.
So if you think about what we see today as the demand, and this is not redu saying this, this is several different reports that are saying this in terms of where we're going to be 10 years from now in 20, 34, 35. And we can do this kind of projection because we also make, like you said, recycled polyester out of bottles, right?
There is, there is a demand today and that will grow and then the textile to textile demand will kind of turn on. And so there's a demand, we believe of around 20 million tons in 20, 34, 35.
And today if you take myself and everybody else that's trying to do what I do and you combine all of that and everybody built exactly everything that they said that they would do, by that time in 34, 35, we could get capacity of four to four and a half million turned on. So it's at best a quarter of the demand that will be there at that point.
And that demand, the 20 that you're talking about, a demand is less than 20% of the polyester in total. In other words, the other 80 million tons or so would be still coming from oil. And of course this would tell you that. Wow. And that's in 10 years.
Yeah, that's in 10 years.
So you guess what, we better get going because if we don't do this, then you're going to have to take 100 million potentially from virgin resources or take more from bottles. But that doesn't make any sense. Like why would you take bottles for?
So it is, it is a, it, we're kind, you know, it's good actually that, that it will take time to summit, you know, in Terms of calibration, in terms of demand and need, we should really try to go much faster.
Colin True
00:21:45.900 - 00:21:49.180
Yeah, we can use it today, Right. I think some context, right?
Patrik Frisk
00:21:49.260 - 00:21:56.820
That's. That's a great thing. But. But it takes three years to build the big regeneration of the 50,000 tons, right? That's. That's a lot. And you're.
Colin True
00:21:56.820 - 00:23:49.190
Well, for the listener, I think, just to give some context about how important this is and how bold this is. Right. And people, longtime listeners of the show, have heard me say this before.
Like, during my time at Polartech and selling, working for textile manufacturer, I was often a little disheartened that the, the capabilities that we had at that place, which, I mean, I'm sure is representative of a lot of textile makers in terms of innovation, of the places we could go, of interesting and new, creative, more sustainable options we could provide, and how. How little our brand partners would really want to pay for them.
They always were very interested and supportive of the outcome, but as soon as that margin started to shrink, boy, the conversation changed quite a bit. And so I always just fell in the camp of, like, the only way this gets better is with, you know, with legislative intervention, right?
I mean, it's like somebody's gonna have to say, you can't do it that way anymore. This is how you have to do it. And we've had a little bit of that, right? You know, the textile acts here in California and things like that.
And one reason I felt that way, too, is because of what you're describing, of, hey, listen, you know, in 10 years on the current trajectory, we can have a quarter of the problem solved effectively. And it's like, so someone, like I said, you have to have a stomach for this. You have to have money for this.
And even then, even if you guys are successful, it's probably.
We will still require some level of legislative intervention in order for this to be completely successful and for us to get off the teat, that is probably petroleum, right? And it's. And that's the state of where we are. And it becomes frustrating because.
And I've said this again multiple times in the pod, because consumers are unreliable. They're not going to demand it.
And I put myself in that bucket of like, you know, I walk into a shop and I see a shirt or something that I want, and I typically will just buy it. And I know better, right? I know to look at what's in it and where it came from, but I'm like, oh, I like that color, and I'm buying the shirt. Right.
I mean, it just, it's just kind of who we are as an organism in a way. Right.
Patrik Frisk
00:23:49.750 - 00:23:53.550
Yeah. We've both been in this business for a long time and we know that.
Colin True
00:23:53.550 - 00:23:55.590
Yeah, usually the shirt's free if it's you or me.
Patrik Frisk
00:23:56.310 - 00:27:45.480
Yeah, that's also true. But I think the fact that the consumer. This is a very emotional buy, right? I mean, apparel, it's emotional.
And if you think about the human needs, right, in terms of shelter and food, you know, actually the way that you project yourself and how you feel about that comes very high up on the type of things that you're most likely to invest in. And that's especially also true when you look at emerging economies. Right.
I mean, one of the first things that people like to do is dress better or buy more clothing. And the world population is still growing and more people are getting out of poverty than before and so forth.
So we're going to see this growth whether we want to or not. And so we need to help the consumer here.
And we should not forget about the fact that this industry contributes to about 10% of the greenhouse emissions in the world.
So having said that, what's really important, and I think this is the other aspect of how we think about this, is the fact that you have to have an economic model that works.
You have to make sure that all of this stuff that we've just talked about in terms of all the things that needs to get built, everybody's got to make money there. If you can't do that, then this is not going to work. So back to your question around margins and cost and things. Yes.
So we're building a whole new system that's going to cost money. And the days of just free riding on an oil pipeline that's actually been built for something else that we've been free riding on.
I mean, oil pipes and what have you, they're actually built for other things too.
And therefore it's a very cheap mode of transportation, if you like, in terms of how to think about the supply chain of oil that then becomes polyester. But it's also a finite resource. And we can debate, and there's, as you know, a lot of debate on how long will this stuff last?
Is it, you know, 20 years? When have we reached peak oil?
Well, I'm part of a very large engineering company now that, that are understanding things like this and everybody knows that at some point we're going to kind of start run out. So do we want to make sure that we start to think about that? Now or do we want to wait until we're in kind of crisis mode before we move or not?
And to your point, some of this legislation should be helping drive better behavior for all of us, right? To some extent. And it's not about regulating everything, it's about frameworks. Right. And it's no different.
Can you imagine if we would not have put in catalytic converters? I mean, I mean, I remember and this is how old I am driving into LA in the late 70s. I couldn't see the city, right.
I could not see the city because the smog was so intense. Right. It's the same thing if you drive into Delhi today in India. So what did we do?
Well, we created catalytic converters and we said to the industry that you got to start putting these things in and here are some timelines. And of course that wasn't easy and that was a cost that you had to calculate with. And this is kind of a similar thing.
You're also talking about emissions here, but you're talking about not just emissions, you're talking about waste that's being created that is not carbon that you can't see. This stuff is going to show up on your doorsteps as well. So that's the added uncomfort of this thing, right?
Colin True
00:27:45.800 - 00:28:03.130
Yeah. So when you look, I mean, I.
Even if, if 10 years from now is sort of the kind of like when you're almost at a level of scale are in between now and then, I mean, do you have, are there short term goals for yarn production? Do you think there's a timeline when ideally you might even see some garments in the marketplace. How does the go to marketplace?
Patrik Frisk
00:28:03.210 - 00:29:26.030
That's a great question. So we'll be making yarns this year, right? We're making yarns. Actually, we're not commercially making them yet because listen, we're 18 months old.
We finished Regeneration Hub zero in fall, you know, that's now commissioned and we're making product out of there.
And now what's really critical is to make sure that you can make the product consistently at the high, at the high quality that we're, that we're really after.
Because the other thing that's important as you think about production and scaling is we believe at Reju that what's so cool about what we're doing is this whole notion about recycled and repurposed is somehow not as good, we think. No, we're actually about rejuvenation. So for us it's really about higher standards second time around.
So we believe we can take this Polyester we make, which is now very clean and very pure and at a very high consistent quality, and make better yarns and fabrics out of this. Right. And then ultimately contribute to a better second life or better second time around, or call whatever you want.
And that should also be part of this. And we're going to be doing that and putting this into the market at the end of this year.
And then, you know, our intent is to have product out there next year.
Colin True
00:29:27.470 - 00:29:55.590
Is there as you go to market with it.
You know, again, to my point about, you know, how brands look at, you know, adding new things to their line and the innovations, do you feel like the price will be comparable to something that exists in terms of, you know, how. How will brands be able to kind of adapt, adopt this quickly or they'll be, hey, listen, there's, there's definitely.
It's going to be more expensive because it is new technology and it has to pay for itself and those kinds of things. Or will it be almost one for one what you're paying now for, for what's in the marketplace? This will be close, close to the same.
Patrik Frisk
00:29:57.020 - 00:30:22.220
You know, I love this because this is where I put my old CEO hat on again, right? And I say, okay, how's this going to work out? Well, here's the deal.
First of all, what we're doing here is in some respects, not different to what you guys were doing at Polartech back in the day, right? We are introducing a different approach to polyester. We've already gone through this once when we introduced RPT from bottles. It was more expensive.
Colin True
00:30:22.790 - 00:30:23.750
It was, yeah.
Patrik Frisk
00:30:23.830 - 00:34:45.840
And because it cost more to do it, you had to aggregate it, you had to put it through a new process and what have you. This is going to be similar. You know, we have to build all of the infrastructure, right?
So when I build one of my regeneration hubs, it costs about 300, $350 million. You know, that that's, that's an investment. But then also, you know, the steps before me also have to invest. So it is an investment case, for sure.
But the beauty of how much cost it's going to add, it is much less. And why is that? Because when you think about polyester as an ingredient in making something, it's only.
And you look at the value chain of all the things that happens when you build a garment, and what this is, it is only a few percentage points of the total cost in the value creation of a garment from end to end. So when you increase the price on a few percent, it is not as dramatic as you might think. Right.
On the, on the overall cost of the garment and ultimately not a big dramatic cost at the end of this, when you start to sell it to the end consumer. More importantly, maybe for the brand is also the fact that from a margin impact, it's very, very low.
Now you can take the approach of saying, okay, well, that's not good. This garment now has a 1% lower margin because I've invested into textile to textile.
Well, if you have an EPR scheme that's working, an extended producer responsibility scheme that is working, you should benefit from putting that reused waste back into that garment and you should have some of that back. But you could also think of the concept of higher standards.
So if you're now making a better product as well, we know the consumer is not going to pay for green, but having run brands like the North Face, like Timberland, you know, like Under Armour in my, in my past and vans and so forth, I know the consumer will pay for better. They will pay for performance, they will pay for comfort.
So why don't we just build that into it as well and kind of hedge our bets here in terms of what the consumer is willing to pay for. Why don't we just build a better product out of this stuff? Yeah. And you know what, the volumes are going to be about this big.
So if you're a really big brand and you're starting to do this and you take it into the overall equation of everything that you're doing, it's not going to be even material. And oh yeah, by the way, our industry has done nothing but adjust to things like this throughout history. Cotton prices going up and down.
I used to be part of VF Corporation. We had brands like Lee and Wrangler. I remember when the cotton was going up, you know, 20, 30, 40% and we were managing that.
I used to run Timberland. Suddenly I had to care about, you know, Texas steer price, high prices, freaking storm in Texas. And they were dying.
And now my leather prices were going like this is, this is.
And, and if you have made a commitment as a brand, you've gone out and you said publicly that I think we should start to care about the waste that we create. And I'm going to put targets out there to try to get from here to there. That's an investment you're making.
And I would make a case for growth, I would make a case for resilience, I would make a case for de risking. And by the way, when we're talking about it, why don't we also think about our business models, right?
And we say, you know what, maybe for this little volume that I'm going to be making of this really good stuff, these better garments, why don't I check out if I can make some of that near to home so I can also come to terms with the overproduction issue. And how about quicker turn? How about faster cash conversion? How about shorter distance in supply chain? Why don't I just look at that?
And the reality is most brands today that are of any scale have already diversified the sourcing. They already have things that are being made in every region.
So, you know, at the end of the day, to me, that kind of conversation, we say, oh, it's too expensive. That is, that is just not. That's just not.
Colin True
00:34:45.840 - 00:35:20.300
No.
And listen, and I don't mean to even Villa when I make that, when I talk about that anecdote, it was disheartening because we couldn't make better things and they didn't. A lot of brands wouldn't want to pay for it. But also put myself in their shoes, that was.
A lot of those iterations were iterative off of other things and it would be a harder message to tell to the consumer. At some point it's like, well, I'm going to give up Mar.
It should be probably for something that I can talk about and this will be an initiative to say, hey, we, you know, what we did, we are doing this now. This is giving me a much easier sustainability story to tell when this comes to market.
So I think, I think you'll immediately find people who want to buy into that.
Patrik Frisk
00:35:20.620 - 00:35:34.860
And I'm sure, you know, not every brand would want to do this right? I mean, everybody has their priorities. And you know, I think this idea around trying to build a better world has been de. Prioritized right now.
Colin True
00:35:34.940 - 00:36:03.470
I think it'd be pretty tough if the performance is comparable. You know, I think it's going to be pretty tough to say no to even if there's a slight increase in price.
I mean, just makes it makes sense and it is an easy story to tell to the consumers who might actually care.
I want to go back, you mentioned, you know, a couple of times the Regeneration Hub one, which is the big news that came out that, that, you know, that is going to go a long way to supporting, you know, your goals here. So what is Regeneration Hub one? You know what, what should we get excited about here as, as this journey unfolds for, for rejuvenation?
Patrik Frisk
00:36:04.500 - 00:38:52.260
Well, we announced last week, like you said that we're going to be building our First Regeneration Hub 1 in the Netherlands, to be beginning next year, to build and to be finished by end of 27. And that's very exciting. And it's exciting because of a number of different things.
First of all, we're announcing that very shortly after we have built our regeneration hub Zero in Frankfurt. A thousand ton, which is, by the way, one of the largest demo plants in the world. Just some, some little thing.
It's a really big, big thing that we've built. And I'll give you some of the stats on that because it kind of builds on the other one. We got 135 tons in that, in that unit.
That's how much steel we used. You got about 200 process instruments, 500 valves, 4 km of piping, 21 km of electrical wine. I mean, it is a technical marvel.
We built it in 11 months and now here we are, eight months later, announcing the fact that we're going to open up up our First Regeneration Hub 1 in the Netherlands.
The reason I want to tell that story is because it's hope, right, that there is somebody here that not only has the technology, but also has the technical and engineering prowess to be able to execute on the technology. And this discussion around just what is your technology that I have every day is of course important.
You need to have a technology and I think you should have a technology that can do what I said before, which is take post consumer waste and address the biggest problem. But also you need to be able to build it out.
And if there's one story, and you asked what's so great about it, I think the message it sends is that we are executing.
And I think when we're doing that now in the Netherlands, it also makes a lot of sense because what's fascinating about the Netherlands as a country is that they do not only have like a net zero target, they actually have a circular target. They want the whole country to be circular by 2050. So it plays into everything that we're trying to do.
It also helps that we're close to water for transport. We have, you know, rail services coming straight into this very large chemical park.
We're very close to some of the largest, densest population centers in Europe. And we have a lot of textile sorting that actually happens in the Netherlands.
So a lot of synergies there too, which, which is important because it probably makes the case for why this would be likely to be successful, right? Because you have all of those, those support mechan there as well, so very exciting.
And we're about to, in a little while, also announce where we're going to be building our first US Regeneration hub as well.
Colin True
00:38:52.900 - 00:38:55.140
Stratham, New Hampshire, right by right next to your house.
Patrik Frisk
00:38:58.660 - 00:39:38.710
Well, let's see, let's see. I think, you know, here's the reality. Before we made that choice in the Netherlands, we looked at 47 different sites on the European.
In the European area, we have looked already now at 30 different sites in the US and we are now evaluating together with our partners how we coordinate the play where they also have their resources. And that's the new news for us. We used to try to do all this by ourselves. Now we have partners.
And that, then again, makes us stronger, but also makes us smarter. Right. In terms of how we think about coordination and what have you.
Colin True
00:39:39.510 - 00:39:57.270
So I guess, last question. You know, you're, you're, you're. This is incredible. Like building these facilities, looking at the next U.S. facility.
You mentioned you're going to be kind of coming to market this year. I imagine that means you're outselling. Are you, are you engaging with outdoor brands? Are you, are you having conversations with them?
What's the response been from the outdoor industry?
Patrik Frisk
00:39:57.830 - 00:40:28.120
Very, very good. You know, I think we are talking to many of the brands.
I think the biggest frustration, I guess from my side is the constraint of volumes that we're going to be able to access and it's going to take such a long time to be able to get people what they actually would like to have or need. And so that's a frustration. And many of the brands we talk to now want to have physical product to work with right now.
And of course, we're just ramping up.
Colin True
00:40:28.540 - 00:40:29.180
Yeah, yeah.
Patrik Frisk
00:40:29.260 - 00:40:37.020
You know, and, and if you're like myself, I, you know, I've been a sales guy my whole life, so that's a, that's a, that's a, you know, that's frustration.
Colin True
00:40:37.500 - 00:40:39.180
But where are the samples?
Patrik Frisk
00:40:40.140 - 00:40:52.780
No sample, no sale, buddy. You know, it's, it's, but it's, it's, it's a lot of preparation work, too.
And listen, if you would have asked me five, ten years ago, patrick, you're going to be the CEO of a chemical engineering company.
Colin True
00:40:53.260 - 00:40:57.060
I would have said you're like, dude, I'm slinging boots over here. What are you talking about?
Patrik Frisk
00:40:57.860 - 00:42:23.400
Like, I'm, you know, I'm carrying the bag here, what's going on? But, but, but, but it happened. And so it's also been a learning journey for me. I've learned A lot of things.
And to be honest, to have a team like I have now that, that, you know, my CEO, for example, Alain Poncheval, you know, he. He is 35 years. He's one of the most senior engineers.
My CFO, Gregoire, 22 years, worked on green and blue hydrogen before with Technip Energies, that owns us, you know, one of the largest engineering companies in the world. So, you know, those kind of people, in combination with the people you mentioned before, like Diane and Matt, are from the textile industry.
That dynamic is a new type of company, right?
It's a company for today that's building for tomorrow with people that are coming together in a hybrid sort of an organization that's actually based on the gap that we need to plug from aggregation of waste to reinserting it back into the brand supply chain. And so you need a new company to be able to do that. Right? That's the truth, and that's what we're doing. So I'm excited about it. It's very difficult.
The journey is long. We're resilient. We believe in what we do. We have a strong purpose, and we want to be here to design a world to last.
Colin True
00:42:24.750 - 00:42:58.690
I love it.
Listen, you know, I, I say it a lot on this pod and, you know, innovation, which the outdoor industry is founded upon, is problem solving and big swings. And I think what you're doing is, you know, kind of a big rock throne at what's happening out there.
And I think, you know, if anybody listening to this who kind of wonders, like, hey, you know what, when are we going to get some real movement? That's interesting on the sustainability side, these are the kind of things that need to happen, like what you guys are doing.
So excited to see how it's going to all unfold. I really appreciate you making some time to come on the pod today.
You know, the next time when you want to announce the first, you know, big outdoor, North American outdoor brand to adopt it, let's do it. But come on the show and we'll tell everybody who it is.
Patrik Frisk
00:42:59.090 - 00:43:01.650
I will absolutely do that. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Colin True
00:43:01.890 - 00:43:03.410
I appreciate it. Thank you, Patrick.
Patrik Frisk
00:43:03.490 - 00:43:03.970
Thanks.
Colin True
00:43:04.930 - 00:43:26.780
All right, that's the show for today. We want your emails. Send them to myrockflightmail.com thanks to my guest, Patrick Frisk. Check out everything about reju over@reju.com.
the Rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight, LLC. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening.
And here again to take us out and send you into your weekend, it's Kristen Makes and He's here to sing the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time, Rock fighters.
Chris DeMakes
00:43:26.780 - 00:44:22.480
Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Welcome to the Rock Fight? Where we speak our truth?
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