Re-Sack’s story begins in 2010 when I was still studying at Rotterdam Business School located in the Netherlands. As for a lot of students, I was undecided about what to do next. When the final graduation thesis was coming up I decided to go along on a trip to New York and succeeding with an internship at a juice company in Los Angeles. The idea came up to write a business plan about distributing a juice in Europe. I wanted to use the business plan as my final thesis. When getting experienced with the juice I felt there were no possibilities to distribute the juice as I wanted, preserved with all the health benefits. The problem was when you conserved the juice all the unique elements of the product were gone.
Still in Los Angeles, I fell in love with the atmosphere. And then it came to me, I noticed that in Los Angeles the free plastic bags were forbidden by the government. I was very excited about this and realized I was an advocate of reusable products instead of useless disposables. Starting my own business as distributor of sustainable products was my calling. Quickly, I submitted the change of plan at school, they approved but made clear that I needed handle quick to make the deadline.
On the first day of January, 2011 I started Made Sustained, a distribution company for sustainable products. I was searching for a concept of cool products which would replace disposables like coffee cups, water bottles, plastic bags etc. I started out to replace the disposable plastic bags. I distributed reusable produce bags made of polyester. But the bags weren’t made of a natural fabric. Therefore, I decided to search for a manufacturer which aims for sustainability. I met the perfect partner and Re-Sack was born.
With Re-Sack I want to create a new habit, this habit is to bring your own reusable vegetables bag to the supermarket instead of useless disposables.
Sjoerd van der Helm
Entrepreneur