Meet Pixo, a French startup that’s been thinking a lot about single-use plastic food packaging for three years. The company seeks to offer a service that makes it easy and cost-effective to use large-scale reusable food storage containers.
The idea for Pixo came from a fair in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris. Right next to the food stalls, trash cans were filled with soda cups, clamshell hamburger containers, and various single-use food packaging.
As a first step, the company began working with the French corporate catering services company Sodexo. He worked with them to replace the plastic cups and make everything reusable. Due to the pandemic and the shift to remote working, Pixo has started looking for other potential customers.
He began working with Foodles, Popchef, and other food technology companies to offer connected refrigerators with packed lunches and snacks.
But Pixo’s biggest market opportunity comes from regulatory changes. In July 2020, the French Parliament adopted an anti-waste law with drastic changes. Restaurants must switch to reusable food containers by January 2023.
This means that fast food chains will not be able to use paper and plastic cups, disposable clamshell boxes, etc. Pixo is already working with an unnamed fast food chain in France to help them make the switch to reusable packaging.
The startup has created a one-of-a-kind reusable food container market that connects all the companies in the sector. When a fast food restaurant buys a batch of containers, they all come with a QR code or NFC chip to track them everywhere.
Restaurants can sub-contract cleaning to specialized companies that can give you a batch of clean containers to pick up the containers for the day. These outsourcing companies also scan containers, cups and whatever else they clean.
On top of that, customers can also order food to be taken out and taken home in reusable containers. They can use an app to find the nearest collection point – it’s not the restaurant where you originally ordered your food. Pyxo is looking at gamification and small deposits to encourage returns.
“Our vision is that this is an infrastructure industry,” co-founder and CEO Benjamin Perry told me. Pixo is planning to build a network that works exactly like a power grid. Ultimately, the startup believes that there will be a dense network of restaurants, collection points and cleaning centers.
Fast food chains can help the industry start up fast as one customer owns a ton of restaurants across the country. They can encourage other actors to participate in the network, with Pixo acting as the network operator.
Business is just getting started as only a small number of restaurants are actively using Pyxo at this time. But the startup has raised $7.9 million (7 million euros) from Eurazio, FiveSeason Ventures and others.
By January 1, 2023, the startup plans to operate in the restaurant sector alone with 2,000 sales points. Paixo still hopes to work with food technology companies and corporate catering services, but they will represent a smaller portion of the business. With today’s round table, the company plans to recruit 70 additional employees.
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