Hawaii WBE Feature: Meli Wraps

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Melia Foster with Meli Wraps. Welcome.

Melia Foster: Oh, thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Meli Wraps. How are you serving folks?

Melia Foster: Definitely. So, for those that do not know what Meli Wraps are, they are reusable beeswax wraps that you use instead of plastic wrap for food storage. So, they’re a really nice, eco-friendly alternative to plastic wrap. And we make them here in Kauai, Hawaii – where I grew up – by hand with local beeswax. So, a wonderful product, and, yeah, I’d love to share more.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. So, what was the genesis of the idea?

Melia Foster: Well, I’m a mother of two boys, and I’m constantly making lunches for school or sporting events, and I can’t stand plastic wrap. So, a girlfriend of mine and I were on a mom’s getaway in Australia way back in 2015, and we came across in a little coffee shop kind of like a bowl of fruit covered with this wax cloth. And I kind of checked it out and I’m like, “Wow. Why don’t we have these in America or Hawaii? These are amazing. This is the perfect eco-friendly alternative to plastic wrap.” Now, this was just like a plain kind of off white colored wrap. And I thought, “You know what? We should make fun prints and do these colorful, exciting patterns. And how fun would that be?”

Melia Foster: So, the two of us, we both had corporate jobs at the time. And so, this was kind of just like a fun side project that we were like, “All right. Well, let’s go ahead and make these for Christmas gifts.” And everybody loved them. So, from there, we went ahead and sold them at local farmers markets, sold out of our product there, and took it to wholesale to local shops in Hawaii, and they did so well.

Melia Foster: Fast forward a couple of years, my business partner, Nicole, at the time, she moved to Bend, Oregon, and she thought, “You know what? Should we keep doing this business?” And I thought, yeah, this is a great opportunity to kind of expand to – we call it – the mainland over there. And so, we started doing expos. Where did we go? We went to Expo West, which was very successful for us. And from there, we got into some larger retailers like Whole Foods and PCC markets and whatnot.

Melia Foster: So, yeah, it just kind of took off and was such a fun adventure and the perfect product that I was hoping for so I didn’t have to use plastic wrap anymore. So much better for the planet.

Lee Kantor: So, you see this product in Australia or a similar product, did you know anything about manufacturing like this? How do you go from a bee to wax to this solution? You know, there has to be some manipulation, obviously, of the beeswax to get it into the form you need it to be in. So, how did all of that take place?

Melia Foster: Yes. Yes, it’s very interesting. So, we, of course, hopped online and were like, How are these made? Where did this idea come from? We did a ton of research. It turns out the Egyptians invented beeswax wraps. So, they have been around for a very, very long time. The Egyptians used wax cloth to preserve their food because wax is a natural preservative. It keeps your food nice and fresh in an eco-friendly way.

Melia Foster: So, we sort of played around with recipes. Luckily, we lived across the street from each other in Hawaii, so we would be running across the street with, you know, pots and pans and beeswax and trying all these recipes. We finally perfected our recipe after a couple of months, and it’s beeswax, natural tree resin, organic coconut oil, and organic jojoba oil, which are both antimicrobial. Everything’s natural. And then, we also use certified organic cotton.

Melia Foster: And the process is, basically, we take a whole bolt of organic cotton material, and we go ahead and infuse it into the melted wax and let it cool, and then we cut everything and pack it. And the wax blend is super important. The recipe has to be just right for the wraps to come out, sticky enough and not too firm, not too soft. So, it was definitely a process.

Melia Foster: But we’re known to have the best beeswax wraps on the market. They last about two years or 150 washes. And people love our patterns and prints, so we’re very prone to doing fun, tropical, bright colored prints. And usually that’s what attracts people in the first place is what they kind of see, like, “Wow. That’s a beautiful print.” And they’re like, “What is this thing?”

Melia Foster: So, yeah, it’s a very unique product. But I’d say about half the people we meet these days have heard of beeswax wraps and the other half have no idea what they are, so very exciting.

Lee Kantor: And then, for the people who don’t know what they are, the plastic wrap that I’m familiar with comes in a roll. It’s hard to tear off. It always sticks to it. It never sticks the way you want it to. Everybody is annoyed by it at some point in the use of it, right? So, now in your case, obviously they’re cut a certain size that is like one static size or do you cut it yourself? How does that work?

Melia Foster: Yeah. So, we actually started by offering a pack of three or four wraps, and we do three sizes. So, we’ll do a 7 by 7, which is perfect for covering half a lemon, half an avocado, all of your odd shaped fruits and vegetables or small bowl. And then, 10 by 10 is our medium size, and that is perfect for a plate of leftovers, a sandwich, something like that. And our large is 10 by 16, which is perfect for a loaf of bread or covering a 9 by 13 pan. We also offer a roll that’s 42 inches long by 13 inches, and then you can go ahead and cut your own sizes with scissors.

Melia Foster: And a lot of people love the roll because they have those, you know, special dishes or trays they want to cover, or maybe they only like to use very small wraps so they can cut just what they need. So, you have those two options. I noticed that a lot of our customers are like, “Gosh, you know what? I don’t want to mess with cutting anything. Just give me your pack that’s precut.” And others will say, “You know what? I want to get creative and cut my own sizes.” So, it’s just personal preference.

Lee Kantor: And then, some of the uses obviously for leftovers, things like that, but are they using it for their kids lunches? Is that another use?

Melia Foster: Yes, 100 percent. They’re great in the lunchbox. You can even fold one into a little envelope to use for snacks instead of a plastic sandwich bag. So, there’s several uses. They can go over dishes. They can go directly over food. They’re completely food safe. And then, they can also be folded into envelopes for snacks and sandwiches.

Lee Kantor: So, I’m on the website, so the things that obviously stand out that’s much different than any type of plastic wrap is the design. I mean, it’s beautiful, artistic, the designs people would want. I could see just for the design element of it, but not even counting the utility of it. How important is that? Is that something you’re always kind of iterating and having, you know, maybe seasonal designs or different designs?

Melia Foster: Oh, definitely. Yeah, that’s the fun part for me. I mean, we’ve been in business for nine years and that’s the creative side. It’s like, What print are we going to do next? And, you know, it really is exciting for our repeat customers who are waiting for the next print or something that speaks to them.

Melia Foster: We are in the process of designing two new prints. We usually do about two or three new prints per year, and then eventually we’ll kind of cycle those out. But we have probably 12 to 13 to offer right now. And it’s so sad when one eventually just sells out. And sometimes we’ll bring it back if we get a lot of requests. But we are definitely known for our fun prints.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this kind of direct to consumer or do people buy this in a wholesale manner or, you know, kind of in bulk?

Melia Foster: Both. We actually do a lot of in-person, direct to consumer shows in different cities. We also sell on our website, meliwraps.com. And then, we do a ton of wholesale. Actually, 80 percent of our business is wholesale and that’s our bread and butter. We service hundreds and hundreds of stores across the U.S. and a couple in Japan, which is exciting. But our largest account would be Whole Foods, which we’re actually going global with them this fall, so you’ll see us in almost every Whole Foods this fall, which is so exciting.

Lee Kantor: Wow, congratulations. That’s such a big achievement.

Melia Foster: Thank you. We’re super excited. We’re doing a custom pack for them, and you will just have to wait to see what that looks like.

Lee Kantor: Now, any advice for the entrepreneur out there that wants to get into a Whole Foods? Because I know they’re pretty good about, you know, testing things out in a hyperlocal manner.

Melia Foster: Definitely. So, the way that we got into Whole Foods, we went to Expo West, which we’ve done several years in a row. It’s a natural foods expo in Anaheim, and we met some sales reps there that had a connection with a buyer. And that was our foot in the door for the Hawaii kind of Southern California region, and then we also got into the Pacific Northwest. And once you’re in one region, it’s very easy to connect with other regions and Whole Foods. So, it’s really just meeting the right person to make that connection.

Melia Foster: So, I would say definitely working with sales reps or a broker is your easiest, straight path to getting into Whole Foods. They know the buyers and they know what needs to be submitted. And sometimes there are some really nice local opportunities as well. So, yeah, I think that’s the best place to start.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I heard they’re really good to work with and that they really try to figure out how to make it work. They’re not just looking to say no to you. They’re looking to say yes and try to figure out how to make it work for both of you.

Melia Foster: One hundred percent, yes. They have been wonderful to work with. Especially this year, we have been working with a global buyer for our category and she has been absolutely wonderful. So, we’re super excited. We’re going to be doing a bunch of demos in stores when we launch our product. And we love that because it’s such a hands-on product. I mean, you want to kind of see it in motion, and customers can kind of see how it works and feel the product before they buy it. So, it’s going to be fun.

Lee Kantor: Now, kind of now that you’ve gotten into this part of using beeswax, are you seeing the uses for it in lots of, you know, kind of tangential ways that maybe you didn’t anticipate when you started?

Melia Foster: I mean, beeswax in general is such an amazing, amazing byproduct of the bees. And we haven’t used it for, you know, candle making or anything like that. We kind of just stick with our one product or very busy with that. But the beeswax wraps, in general, we found some interesting uses for that are not necessarily related to food.

Melia Foster: So, for example, I was at a soccer game last week and my son, a ball hit him in the head and he was knocked out of the game. And so, we took the beeswax wrap off of the bowl of oranges that was sitting there and wrapped some ice in there, and it became an ice pack. And it was perfect because it’s waterproof and you can just fold it up. It worked really well for that.

Melia Foster: You can also use beeswax wraps to open stubborn jars. I’ve used them for medical reasons in a pinch, sort of like a Band-Aid around the finger. Gosh. What else? If you’re missing, like, a cap for something or if you need to seal a hole, you can kind of scrunch one up and it takes a certain shape. So, it’s really funny. We have jokes about it. It’s like, just use a beeswax wrap. If you can’t figure out how to fix that thing, just stick that on there. They’re very malleable. And wax is incredible, because it’s waterproof, it’s really helpful in certain situations.

Lee Kantor: Now, what compelled you to get involved with WBEC-West? What was kind of the thinking there of being part of that community?

Melia Foster: Yeah. You know, I applied a long time ago when we first started the business and I just thought it was super special with lots of opportunity. I am a single mother and a woman. I have always looked forward to becoming my own boss and thought, “You know what? I’m going to apply for this and have this certification.” It’s also one of the questions that they ask when you’re applying if you want to have your products in a Whole Foods or PCC markets or other grocery chains, they ask if you’re certified. And so, I thought, “Well, I should probably be certified.”

Melia Foster: So, we have that logo on our packaging, which is really nice. And people recognize that and they say, “Wow. This is a woman-owned business. I’m going to support them.” So, I feel like we’ve definitely benefited from that and are very proud of it.

Lee Kantor: So, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Melia Foster: Oh, gosh. I think just maybe sharing about our products. I think it would be so fun to have some sort of marketplace for women-owned businesses or some way to. I mean, this is great. Being on a podcast is wonderful. I feel like this is the easiest way to kind of reach the world, and so this is wonderful.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you need more wholesale clients, more consumers, or just kind of all of the above?

Melia Foster: All of the above. Absolutely. We’re always looking to grow and want to continue to share this wonderful product that’s great for the planet with everybody. So, we would love connections to some more wholesale opportunities and direct to consumer. That would be great.

Lee Kantor: Now, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Melia Foster: Yeah. So, it’s meliwraps.com, just M-E-L-I. So, meli is actually honeybee in Hawaiian. So, meliwraps.com is the best way to check us out and see what we have to offer.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Melia Foster: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. This is such an honor and the first podcast I’ve ever been on, so that’s exciting.

Lee Kantor: Congratulations and congratulations in all the success and the momentum. You know, you should be really proud, what you’re doing is hard.

Melia Foster: Thank you. Yeah, it has been challenging. But I personally enjoy challenges and feel that that is the best way to learn. So, for anyone out there looking to start a business or in the middle of it and coming across some obstacles, just keep going.

Melia Foster: That’s my advice. Don’t stop. Just keep going and ask questions. Especially other entrepreneurs or business owners that have gone through it before, they know so much and have been through so much, so definitely don’t be afraid to ask. You can contact me if you want.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you for that. And thank you again for sharing your story.

Melia Foster: Yeah. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.