Xampla, a natural material company based in the UK, has launched a new brand, Morro, to commercialize its highly innovative, vegan, and eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastics.
The company, a University of Cambridge spin-off, has developed a technology that uses plant proteins or sustainable feedstocks to create a material that behaves like plastic, providing protection and extending the shelf-life of ingredients and products.
However, since Xampla’s natural material is not chemically modified, it “does things that plastic never could,” such as being soluble, edible, cookable, and completely biodegradable in any environment, including home compost, explains the company.
“Our technology is a world-first, capable of replacing the most polluting plastics at scale and delivering performance parity,” says Xampla.
Switching away from single-use plastics
Morro’s portfolio includes five products featuring the ‘Morro marque’ that replace plastic in commercial uses:
- Morro Soluble Film: A biodegradable and protective film for home and personal care products that the company claims to have pioneered through sustainable and scalable methods.
- Morro Coating: Plastic-free protection for paper and card used in packaging applications such as food containers.
- Morro Edible Film: Edible and cookable plant-based film for food and cleaning applications. This product debuted with UK meal kit retailer Gousto, which used it to wrap stock cubes.
- Morro Micro: Soluble and biodegradable microcapsules for fragrance and flavor with multiple applications, including personal and home care.
- Morro Nutri: Edible microcapsules that guard vitamins against UV light, pH imbalance, and pasteurization, even in clear bottles.
The UK Government’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, granted Xampla £1 million in funding to scale its technology and material processing, reported Bioplastics Magazine. Recently, Xampla was selected among the world’s 100 most promising global cleantech companies in the 2023 Global Cleantech 100.
Pete Hutton, executive chair at Xampla, said: “Morro will enable brands to make an easy switch away from single-use plastics, and our breakthrough material can do things plastic never could.”
