(00:01):
Well I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprint ball was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet over someone, please save me, trying to save the planet over someone. Please save me.

(00:25):
Welcome to in over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. Well, this is another edition of planet-saving superstars, where I talk to everyday people who are doing great environmental work. My guest today is Megan Takeda, Telley founder and CEO of supply. Let's meet her. Welcome to in over my head. Megan,

(00:41):
Thanks so much for having me.

(00:42):
So you're the founder and CEO of supply. What is supply?

(00:47):
Yeah, so I guess at its at its core supply is really a reusable takeout container service. We allow food vendors and users to swap in reusable, stainless steel containers for what they would otherwise use as single-use containers. We kind of have built out the logistics system and you know, now we're building out the technology to support that at scale so that it's reasonably easy and doesn't involve a whole lot of behaviour change on the customer or on the food vendor side.

(01:20):
Yeah, I that's what, actually, what I like about what you're doing is that it seems like it is quite convenient because takeout is supposed to be convenient. Right. So if you make it inconvenient, then people probably aren't gonna use it. So supply has an app and is that correct?

(01:32):
Yeah. Right now it's a web app. And so it's available through our website and essentially how it works is people can go sign up for an account through the website and place an order for pickup or delivery for many of our partner restaurants and they receive their containers and their food the same way they usually do. It's just, it's a zero waste experience instead of having all that garbage at the end of your meal that you have to throw out and sort through. And we've found that is you know, for customers is the biggest draw and actually makes takeout that is otherwise in single-use containers, a little less pleasant in future. So , they end up coming back, which is great. And, and yeah, and then we basically have dropoff bins set up throughout the areas that we serve. And we really aim to be at kind of like a five to seven-minute walk radius, so people can drop off their containers that they're done with. And then we do daily route through those areas to pick up from drop-off bins that are getting fuller, take everything, to be centrally clean and sanitized. And on that same route, we drop off clean containers for restaurants. So really trying to be efficient with the logistics there.

(02:38):
I'm curious, like, do you ever have containers that aren't quite clean? Is that ever an issue?

(02:41):
Yeah, no people are, you know what actually I'd say from takeout, like 95% of our containers look like they've been through like a full dishwashing cycle. So no, our customers are, are really quite good about that. And, you know, I think it comes from a place of sort of understanding and respecting the hosts of the drop-off bins, right? So, you know, there are mission-aligned restaurants and coffee shops and grocers. There are some on private properties too, but generally, people are pretty good. Things are very thoroughly rinsed or washed. And I think that's a Testament to the kind of quality of our customers too. You know, they're thoughtful about things, including container returns.

(03:17):
How do you get the, the restaurants on board that you have, who are offering these containers?

(03:22):
I got restaurants on board initially during the pandemic. Now we obviously knock on doors or go visit them. But at that point it was, it was basically calling them cold calling and we got a few amazing partners to sign up initially. But what we found actually now is that we've got a backlog of restaurants. We're a small but mighty team. So we're trying to keep up with the onboarding of the restaurants that are committed. And then we also have a list of those that people like customers have sent us that said, you know, I've gone and pitched this restaurant and they're interested like literally our customers and restaurants go and pitch other restaurants. And so we've got a pretty healthy flow. We're just trying to build up our team now to be able to service that flow.

(04:02):
I assume that during the pandemic, it was maybe more of a challenge with the reasonable containers cause so many things were single-use and, trying to be as sanitary as possible. Was that a challenge?

(04:11):
You know what, like a little bit initially, but you know, our process follows the same rules that hospitals follow for sanitizing things, right? So people didn't really want germs and to catch, you know, to catch things off of food service plates and dine-in stuff before. So our process is really no different than that. And so when I used to talk about that with restaurants or customers and convey that you obviously have to be very sensitive, some people are a little more sensitive to that piece and that's totally reasonable just giving them comfort that, you know, this is not something that is overly new or, or different. It it's really just like we're trying to be as sanitary as we've always tried to be.

(04:49):
I guess we can touch also just on, on the reasons why you're doing this. So tell me a little about the waste in Toronto, that's happening with takeout containers.

(04:57):
So I, I have this figure that I usually present to groups. When I talk about like the global takeout market, because it's expected to reach 150 billion by 2025, which is not that far away, but that means that also we have like a ridiculous amount of packaging waste. And so if you kind of add up some of the containers use just on an annual basis, it stacks 240,000 times higher than the sea tower, which is I use the sea tower cuz I'm from Toronto and we, we started in Toronto, but it's just to me it's so preventable. And I guess we can talk a bit about where the idea came from because it's tied in, but I saw a documentary on this amazing system in India. It's their dub wall system in Mumbai India that essentially allows workers in offices to get home-cooked meals every single day in stainless steel, Tiffin, lunch boxes.

(05:50):
And it's incredible. I won't even sell call it low tech. It's no tech system that involves getting meals from rural areas and on trains and distributed. And they have like a less than 1% error rate in getting the right meal to the right person and then getting that container back to the home. And so I saw it and I thought, this is amazing. There's no reason why we should have so much waste here in Toronto or north America or anywhere else in the world, really, from takeout. And so that, that little spark under me, the documentary I saw was, was aging myself, but it was over a decade ago. And at the time I had actually pitched it to a bunch of friends, entrepreneurs, friends, and my now husband. And they actually hated the idea they talked about how they liked the black plastic containers.

(06:33):
Cause it was like, you know, they could just, they could throw it out, didn't have to worry about losing it and you know, kind of broke my heart, but I felt like, okay, the market's probably not ready. And then, you know, fast forward to about three years ago, I was hanging out with the same group and unprompted, they were complaining about the same containers being single-use in takeout and meal kits and all that sort of thing. And I sort of laughed inside and I thought, okay, I think it's maybe the market's ready and it's time to start kicking the tires on this again.

(06:59):
No, that, that, that's super interesting. And I love that you were inspired by that documentary and, and those low-tech solutions. I think so many times when we're looking at addressing the climate crisis, it's how can we build more and add more technology, but there's also that simplifying and going back to basics, which I really like about what you are doing. And when I look at the website, I also enjoy that there are also other resources there. It seems like you are educating and growing over and above the takeout containers. So tell me a bit about that.

(07:26):
I think customers are becoming more and more, not just aware, but starting to try and self-educate on what we're doing to this planet and how we improve the way, we treat scarce resources. And so, yeah, I think it was really important for us to make sure that we're providing people with resources so that they can kind of, even if they're just starting their journey to question things, to think about things more. And I come from a, an investment background, but before founding supply, I worked at an impact investment organization is very rigorous in terms of impact measurement and data. And so for me, it was, it's always been very important to build a strong fundamental company. But one that is like, if you look under the hood is really, truly has data behind doing good. And so we wanna be like a kind of as open and transparent as we can in our thought processes and what we've done. And if people wanna contribute to that, like I would love that to kind of build that up and get people thinking more about it. And I think for supply, yes, we measure the number of containers we've diverted from landfills, which is awesome. It's harder to measure, but I think, our largest impact will be in the behaviour change that we're helping catalyze in, people and communities and, and supporting, supporting those groups.

(08:41):
Yeah. And that's definitely a harder change to measure, but it's definitely an important one. Where do you imagine the company going in the future then?

(08:49):
Yeah. I mean, our goal is to achieve the highest impact that we can. And from the beginning, we wanted to build a solution that was built to scale. And whether that is through kind of us being boots on the ground and operating or providing others with the tools to be able to scale it. I think there are both opportunities and models there, but I think we've done a really great job at trying to understand the processes, the different stakeholders involved, and what type of value we bring to people. And what's really important to customers in restaurants. You know, I know we talked about low-tech solutions, but does leverage technology where we need to, to make this something that can grow into a global solution.

(09:29):
And so you, you said you're are, you're a small but mighty company and you're, you're growing your customer base. Have you had feedback from customers about their experience with supply and, and how maybe it's changing the way they're seeing takeout and sustainability in general?

(09:42):
Yeah, we've been really from the very beginning, really focused on getting customer feedback and building it as a very customer and stakeholder-centric business. So, you know, I loop restaurants very much into that, cuz they've basically helped us design things too. Yeah. Our customers are end restaurants, honestly. They're, they're amazing. They're the best. I just received actually a few emails today from customers that, you know, one was like helping us pull out bugs from the system and conveying their support for us. And they're so patient and really wanna help us get better to have the, you know, the impact that we all see the potential for. We have volunteers across like amazing areas of expertise from companies that are just, yeah, great, great, very successful people and companies. And it's just like, it's really nice to feel that supported when you're trying to build something it's not easy to build a company and it's not easy to build a mission-driven company.

(10:40):
We had one customer that wrote to us and said, thank you so much for starting supply. I didn't order takeout a whole lot. I thought it was because I just didn't like takeout but turns out actually it was because I didn't like all the waste. And so now now I can actually order takeout and you know, the person, this individual orders regularly through us for us, it's nice to be able to bring people back into the market, to connect with their local restaurants and food vendors. It's a win-win, but it comes from the engagement of our customers and being really, I think as thoughtful as we can to design a, a business and a model that takes into account, what they really feel is important

(11:16):
With that example, like there are people who have takeout and they see a problem, but they don't know what to do about it. Like how do I actually change that? So I really like that you are doing this and you're trying to empower your community and the larger world so that we can get rid of takeout and, and go to something better. So I think it's, a great story and a great business. So thanks so much for coming on the show, Megan.

(11:35):
Yeah. Thanks very much. And hopefully, we don't eliminate takeout. Just the waste associated with it.

(11:40):
Yes. Just the waste. No, just cook at home. Everyone. Stop eating takeout.

(11:44):

(11:45):
Well, that was my chat with Megan. I think supply is doing great work and I can't wait to see where they're headed in the future and how they'll grow. And I'd like to see every restaurant using reusable containers for takeout. That'd be amazing. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Bartz, here's the feeling a little less, even over our head when it comes to saving the planet, we'll see you again. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz, original theme song by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch with us, email info@inovermyheadpodcast.com. Special thanks to Telus STORYHIVE for making this show possible.

(12:16):
I'm trying to save the planet. Oh, will someone please save me?