Portfolio overview

Vytal

Demand for convenience, to-go and delivery food is growing strongly across the globe. This growth means that disposable packaging is also piling up. We only use the packaging for 30-60 minutes, but we can be stuck with it for 500 years. With their digital and deposit-free reusable packaging service for take-away and delivery meals, the German start-up Vytal is on a mission to eliminate this disposable packaging waste.

Let’s eliminate disposable packaging waste

By using Vytal’s platform and containers, a restaurant can easily offer reusable packaging to their customers, replacing the single-use status quo. A partner restaurant pays Vytal per transaction, which is cost competitive or cheaper than single-use, keeping the service free for end users. Vytal also measures the eco-impact for all its partners and creates an ecosystem of supermarkets, restaurants, canteens and corporate partners, helping to achieve the necessary convenience level for consumers to make reusables as easy and convenient as single-use.

For Vytal we track the following impact targets:

➡️: Cumulative number of single-use packages avoided (75%)
➡️: Average days for a reusable container to return, which determines how often a container is used per year showing the achieved circularity of Vytal’s network (25%)

SDG Alignment

Replacing the single-use status quo

For consumers, Vytal is comparable to other sharing services such as e-scooters. Once they have registered in the Vytal app or purchased a Vytal membership card, customers can borrow and return freshly washed bowls. The entire process is handled digitally using the QR code labels on the Vytal Bowls. These end users return their containers to any Vytal partner and only pay a penalty for late returns. Vytal’s proprietary technology enables their partners to efficiently track containers and manage inventory, as each container is linked to either a restaurant or user account.

Germany has decades of experience with reusable packaging, and the Vytal team wants to use this experience to continuously improve its digital reusable packaging system and make it globally scalable. And with a return rate of over 99% and an average rental period of 3 days, Vytal achieves better return rates than the German bottle deposit system. Our investment alongside partners Grazia Equity and IP Group will enable Vytal to continue to develop their product and help more partners to tackle the single-use packaging madness.