Forget Big Oil, Tru Earth is taking on Big Soap one load at a time
Canadian entrepreneur Brad Liski is sticking to his ESG playbook
CHICAGO (Callaway Climate Insights) — As COP29 begins this week with all its geopolitical intrigue, it’s important to remember that real climate impact often begins at the individual level.
Meet Brad Liski, an affable Canadian entrepreneur who agreed to help an extended family member get his money back out of a nowhere investment five years ago and wound up running a C$100 million laundry detergent company suddenly competing in the $85 billion laundry business known as Big Soap.
Dubbed the “detergent insurgent” by one wag, Liski said the company Tru Earth has the global exclusivity on the patent on a growing style of detergent strips, which are small, more efficient and most importantly, packaged in tiny paper wrappings instead of bulky plastic bottles of liquid or plastic pods.
“The strip category — all players now — is growing faster then the pod category when it was invented 12 years ago,” Liski told Callaway Climate Insights last week from his headquarters in Vancouver, B.C.
The premium strips, which price between the liquids and the pods, are finding themselves on shelves in stores like Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons. They are part of a suite of eight revenue streams the company manages in the laundry and bathroom industries, competing against the likes of Procter & Gamble PG 0.00%↑ and Unilever UL 0.00%↑ in the U.S, Canada, Europe, and Australia.
The company had a small, “low eight figure” Series A two year ago with investors Export Development Canada and the Renewal Funds, a Canadian venture capital firm. It is preparing for a Series B next year that will approach nine figures at the top of the range, Liski said.
But what really interested us when we met Liski at New York Climate Week at a cocktail party in September was not the David vs. Goliath story in of Tru Earth, but its origins during the Covid era and the how that led to its environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices.
“We believe clean clothes are a human right,” said Liski, adding that poorer communities are often given food but not cleaning products for basic sanitation. “I didn’t realize how many people would care this much about disruption.”
During its early days as Covid descended on Canada and the world, neighbors and friends came out to help Liski and his small team package the laundry strips and send them direct to consumers.
Now that the company is more business-to-business, it remembers that outreach by dedicating a month’s worth of strips for every C$25 in sales to food banks, shelters, even sports teams.
The give-back program is a core part of Tru Earth’s ESG initiatives, and Liski has ESG chief Anita Spiller and her team report directly to him to make sure the rest of the company never forgets.
“It empowers them and gives them ability to execute what they need to execute,” Liski said.
Liski says his plans for Tru Earth in 2025 are the Series B and a couple of new production innovations, which he is excited about. And continuing to draw on and give back to community while keeping the pressure on Big Soap.
“I never realized how many people are interested in being disruptive,” he said.
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Tks Ellen....ha, yes, Jan. 6. I think he meant a different type of disruption.....cheers...dave
Oh, that's where those came from! My husband buys them and we use them all the time now. He never realized how many people were interested in being disruptive? He must have missed January 6, 2021!