Intro/Outro (00:02):
Welcome to Logistics with Purpose presented by Vector Global Logistics. In partnership with Supply chain. Now we spotlight and celebrate organizations who are dedicated to creating a positive impact. Join us for this behind the scenes glimpse of the origin stories change, making progress and future plans of organizations who are actively making a difference. Our goal isn’t just to entertain you, but to inspire you to go out and change the world. And now here’s today’s episode of Logistics With Purpose.
Kristi Porter (00:35):
Hello, and thanks for joining us for another episode of Logistics With Purpose. I am Chief Marketing Officer at Vector Global Logistics, Christie Porter. And I’m joined today by my very rare co-host, but always excited. Ria Sierra, global marketing director. Ria, how are you today?
Nuria Sierra (00:53):
I’m good, thank you. How are you Christie? I
Kristi Porter (00:56):
Am good. And we just met our guest, or actually are just still getting to know him. Just saw him at an event a couple of weeks ago and immediately thought we’re ready to talk to this guy and hear more about his story. So I will let you introduce him and then we’ll get rolling.
Nuria Sierra (01:14):
Awesome. So today we are super thrilled to welcome Chris Forbes. He’s the dynamic co-founder of the Chicky Panda, which launched alongside with he’s wonderful partner, Julie. The Chicky Panda is not just another company. It has been recognized as the sixth top startup in the uk listed in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 ones to watch and proudly holds a big corp certification underscoring its commitment to positive change. So Chris is also deeply passionate about driving impactful change for good and is a regular presence in various media platforms including podcast press and radio. And he’s well known for his engaging keynote speeches. So today he’s here to share his insights with us. So Chris, welcome to Logistics With Proposed, and thank you so much for being here with us today. How are you? Doing great, and
Chris Forbes (02:25):
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Kristi Porter (02:27):
Awesome. Thrilled to have you here. And most of our listeners of course connect through their favorite podcast platform, but we really encourage you to go onto YouTube for this one and check out Chris’s headgear. It will definitely make you remember him, remember Cheeky Panda and it certainly did with us and that’s one of the reasons we’re here today. So Chris, to get us started, before we dive into some of your background and things, I wanted to just ask some quick questions to get things going. So hopefully these will come to you quickly. And yeah, there’ll be the start of a great discussion. So first of all, what is the best advice you’ve received?
Chris Forbes (03:08):
Best advice I’ve ever received is try to be eloquent, which is don’t try to be a busy fool, try to think about what you’re trying to do before you do it.
Kristi Porter (03:17):
Wow, that is good and very unique. And if you could have a superpower, what would that be?
Chris Forbes (03:24):
My superpower would be negotiation.
Kristi Porter (03:27):
Ooh, good one. I would like that one as well. And what’s your go-to productivity hack? You guys have grown so much, so what keeps you on top of your tasks?
Chris Forbes (03:38):
Try to be flexible.
Kristi Porter (03:40):
Another good one. What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever visited?
Chris Forbes (03:45):
I would say it’s Japan, followed by China, and it’s just because it’s so different there to what it is to how I’ve grown up.
Kristi Porter (03:57):
Oh, that’s good. And what’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day?
Chris Forbes (04:01):
My favorite way to unwind is if the weather is nice to sit in my garden.
Kristi Porter (04:07):
Good answer.
Nuria Sierra (04:07):
Amazing. Amazing. Wow, I love those answers. And also Japan and China, they are both on my bucket list, so hopefully one day. So Chris, to start us off, please, can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up and your childhood please?
Chris Forbes (04:31):
Certainly. So I’m Scottish. You might just text from my accent. It’s not quite pure English. I grew up in
Nuria Sierra (04:38):
Highland. How about in Scotland?
Chris Forbes (04:39):
Yeah, so I grew up, I was born in perf in Pershore, which is a south
Nuria Sierra (04:44):
Central. I lived five years inland.
Chris Forbes (04:46):
Okay. So I lived in Central Highlands, which is up the A nine. So it was a very beautiful part of the world. I lived by a 16 mile lock forest as far as the eye could see to the left and a big mountain on the right hand side. And living in a place like that really sort of lends to appreciate nature. It’s also quite a small community as well, so it’s kind of one of the reasons why I wanted to leave there as well because well, it’s very beautiful. There’s not enough to do.
Nuria Sierra (05:19):
Amazing.
Kristi Porter (05:20):
Well definitely. I didn’t hear it as much until you started talking about Scotland and then your accent definitely comes out more. I love it. So looking back, you talk about nature. So I’m sure this is going to kind of weave into this, but what’s a story from those early years that shaped who you are and what you’re doing right now?
Chris Forbes (05:42):
Yeah, so I mean I think I’ve always been quite outdoorsy and in Scotland you learn to appreciate weather patterns as well because you can have four seasons in one day. It can suddenly be rain, it can be hail, it can be beautiful sunshine, it can be very warm and very cold at the same time. So you start to appreciate your environment around you and you understand nature. And I think sustainability for me was something that I used to do salmon fishing and then you understand why there’s a lot less salmon because of over fishing and then you start to understand the impact that you have in the world. And I think that’s always stayed with me understanding how we are as people and how we share this planet with so many different things.
Kristi Porter (06:29):
Was sustainability, was that a concept you understood at that age or is it kind of looking back?
Chris Forbes (06:36):
Oh yeah, definitely understood it from an early age. I think maybe not in the way that we talk about it now in terms of measurement, but you sort of understand it from changing weather conditions and stuff like how many fish there, why or not is there going to be fish in 20 years time? And that would be a big shame. So I was always kind of aware of overfishing and the environment.
Nuria Sierra (07:03):
Amazing. So Chris, you graduated from the University of Language with a business arts in philosophy. So how did your time there shape your path and what key moments sparked your decision to pursue entrepreneurship?
Chris Forbes (07:22):
I mean, philosophy is something that I was interested in because I studied psychology and sociology and so geography as well, which a lot of the key economic principles or social thinking was derived from philosophy. So I’ve decided that maybe by studying philosophy I might be able to tackle some of the big questions that we have. And philosophy is a very enjoyable subject. I mean, whether I would spend as much money on a philosophy degree these days, knowing how much education costs, it was probably a debatable, but we were still sort of free tuition in my generation. So I was fortunate enough to be able do our humanities degree. And yeah, it kind allows me to look at some of the big picture questions and I still actively read philosophy and I’m also still involved to certain degrees with credit university as well as well, I get invited back quite often.
Kristi Porter (08:20):
Oh wow.
Nuria Sierra (08:22):
Love it.
Kristi Porter (08:23):
We’re here to talk about cheeky Panda, but before we do that, you of course had things going on before that time. So tell us about your first projects back in the nineties, phishing net.com. You had a PhD in search and selection. I don’t know what that means, so I would love to hear more, but how did your background, how did it shape your entrepreneurial mindset and approach to business innovation? Please explain search and selection degree.
Chris Forbes (08:52):
Okay, yeah, fair enough. So phishing net, I, that was in the early days of the internet. My friend was talking about creating a website to map all the different rivers in Scotland and how we could sell ongoing services. And I thought mean, we looked at what domains were available and we went, well, Phish and fishing was obviously taken and we were like, well, what about phishing net because it’s phishing on the net. So we were able to buy that domain name and then we created a dynamic website that sold phishing services through Scotland and throughout the uk. So that was my first touch into entrepreneurship. Unfortunately I was doing that from Scotland, which isn’t really the hub of e-commerce or entrepreneurship. And at that point in time I wanted to be involved in more senior business leadership discussions, and that’s kind of when I got involved with PhD search and Selection, which is a headhunting business in financial services and capital markets.
(09:58):
And why I liked working in that business is because I could work with various senior people at a very early age. And at the age of 21, 22, I was dealing with directors of operations. And then by the age of 25 I was working in Wall Street with billion pound hedge fund managers. So it definitely allowed me to work at a more senior level when it would’ve taken me 10 to 15 years in a more traditional corporate environment to get to that level. So yeah, I’ve had a lot of great experiences globally in doing that and that business was very much a lifestyle business as I could make a lot of money without having to work particularly too hard to make that money because I built such a strong network. So it was a bit of a step change to come in from one end of the market to essentially the bottom of the market.
Nuria Sierra (10:52):
That’s really clever. Interesting. So Christine, in 2016 you and Julie Chen founded Chicky Panda. So for our audience who has yet to become familiar with it, please tell us what it is, how everything started, how is that impacting the world and white toilet paper? Paper?
Chris Forbes (11:20):
Yeah, I think there’s a lot in a lot that, so when Julie, myself and Julie were dating at the time and now we’re married and she came to me in 2015. She was running an e-commerce business at the time, so she was very much into entrepreneurship. We had a shared love of business and she came to me one day and said, why don’t we make toilet tissue of bamboo? And I said, why would we do that? And she said, because it’s the world’s fastest growing plant. And I went, well, why is no one else doing it and is it any good? And she said to me, it’s a brilliant material, it’s very soft, it’s very strong, it’s quite a luxurious. I said, well, let’s get some. And then for the next sort of six months, we trialed it and then she came up with a concept of cheeky panda and I said, that’s very clever using the world, cheeky a double entendre.
(12:15):
So she thought it was happy, cheeky, she didn’t realize it meant also meant bum cheeky. It’s quite funny. And I said, listen, okay, if you want to build a business like this, if you essentially it’s a sustainable business using the world’s fastest growing plant. I said, we need to check all the bamboo comes out of China. So I said, we need to go and check the supply chain. So we took a trip to China, met her parents for the first time, and then went to investigate bamboo. And during that trip to China, I went from an airport to a five hour core journey. So imagine going from London to the border to Scotland and then the whole thing was bamboo. It’s just bamboo as far as the eye could see. So I thought we’re never going to run out of this ever, and what a fabulous resource. And I was really impressed with the supply chain and the manufacturing and that’s kind of where I said, okay, I think there’s a real business here and let’s start the foundations to build that business.
Kristi Porter (13:18):
Wow. So I have a couple follow-up questions on that then. So one, and maybe this is just where you were then versus where we are now. Now we see everything from clothing to towels to so many things made of bamboo. So why was toilet paper the main factor?
Chris Forbes (13:37):
Yeah, I mean I think it is an original idea. So we were the first company in Europe to do bamboo tissue and it wasn’t even well known in China that you could make tissue at bamboo. It was only because Julie was Chinese and she knew it came from the region, so that’s why she knew about it. So I think we were attracted not just to be a copycat. I think anybody can copy an idea to come up with an original idea means that you can actually make a market. And that’s some of the stuff that I’ve been doing in malware business is actually trying to become number one and making markets, building markets that hadn’t been built before. So to be able to do it with a product was intellectually appealing while also understanding there’s obviously a lot of risk when you do that. So that’s probably the main reason.
Kristi Porter (14:28):
And so again, forgive my naivety. Does bamboo grow in forests? How has it grown hard?
Chris Forbes (14:35):
Yeah, it does. I mean it almost looks like a forest of trees and it can grow up to about 15 meters and it harvest every year. So when you cut down bamboo, it just regrows the root, it’s a grass. And then when you cut down a tree, a tree’s dead at the root. Trees take a long time to grow. So being able to use something, we live in a world of stretched resources, so being able to use something that’s such sort replenishable like next to wind and water and energy, it’s one of the most sustainable things on our planet. So why not be using it in a lot more ways than what we were back in 2016 and 2016 was sustainability wasn’t on everybody’s top of the list. It was well, we will buy it if it’s cheaper, was the approach to sustainability. And I think that’s changed now, but if you build something early, then when the market catches up with you, that means you’re ready.
Kristi Porter (15:42):
Yeah, absolutely. And so my other question too is the three of us world travelers, we love to travel. You just talked about your experience going to China to see this for the first time. I’m curious how did those financial and entrepreneurial wheels start turning the career that you had built to that point? How did that come into play when you started this business and started building it from the ground up?
Chris Forbes (16:11):
Yeah, it’s a good question. The first question is can you prove that people want the product? So I’d watched what BrewDog had done with, they’d done a crowdfunding campaign with punk’s equity, and I thought that was a really good way to market test your idea. So when we started the business, I said to Julia, I said, let’s go and see if strangers would buy the product. I said, because if strangers buy the product, then we’ve actually got something here, but if it’s just you and I that think it’s a good idea, then maybe it’s not a good idea. So being able to use that to market test it, we started off a very small campaign of about 10,000 pound and we sort reached out within four weeks and I went, okay, well if strangers want to buy it, then we’re obviously onto something here. And we were able to pre-sell that.
(16:57):
So as we were getting the product ready, we were able to bring on new clients because business is about trying to achieve revenue as quickly as possible. And if you’re always kind of stuck in research and development, then you’ve got to carry lots of costs and people costs and you’ve got bills to pay and mortgages and stuff like that. So first and foremost, I kind of looked at the financial side of things, but secondly what I did, I looked at actually how to build the market. And so I downloaded the Harvard Business School plan and spent about 40 hours using the template to build out what I thought the business would look like. And about three years later when I went back to the original plan, I’d said that 70% of what was analyzed in that document came out to be relatively correct.
Nuria Sierra (17:44):
Wow. So we see an immense value in having a strong purpose and driving your company forward so as it can deeply impact both your professional and personal journey. So as a mom as well, understanding that our children often serve as powerful motivators and sources of inspiration. So we are eager to hear about how your little one has influenced the development of new product within the company.
Chris Forbes (18:24):
So I mean, we had our son in September, 2018, so in the middle of having a very early stage startup business, we decided to not let life stop. And we had a child and it was high pressure, but it was the right thing to do. And then once we had our baby, we were using either Pampers or Wet Wipes baby wipes, and we kept getting skin rashes and they dried out really quickly and we went, well, can we make baby wipes out of bamboo? And four or five months later we had cheeky Panda baby wipe. So that directly influenced us because we could almost see that we could create a better product. And then we sort of developed some more baby care products like nappies and dry wipes as well. Yeah. And it is a nice thing that you actually want your children to have good material but also sustainable material. And so that helped our thinking on that.
Kristi Porter (19:32):
Yeah, wow. That came to market really fast and I’m sure there was a huge need for that as well. Well, we had the pleasure of hearing you speak a couple of weeks ago for one of the B month events. So we recently obtained our B Corp certification. You’ve been in that community for a long time. I’m curious about a couple of things. One, you obviously have had a strong commitment to sustainability and eco-friendliness since the beginning. I think we’ve seen just through our own experiences as well as through the events that Nuri and I had the pleasure of attending, that’s becoming a much bigger conversation, especially within the B community, but just generally. So how do you feel, I feel like we’re kind of in a tipping point with that conversation. Would you agree or are you finally, everybody’s getting on the wagon and we should have all been here all along, or what’s your stance on that?
Chris Forbes (20:37):
Yeah, I mean sustainability is a journey and any change in transition, there’s early adopters and then there’s early majority, late majority. So it kind needs pioneers and innovators to really jump ahead. We were one of the first hundred companies in the UK to become a B Corp, and I did question some of the amount of work that had to go into it for something that wasn’t an established certification at the time. But I did think that the pillars that we were building on in terms of social value, justice and environment were actually really good things for us to think about. So that’s why we ended up becoming a B Corp. And as you see it build, you see more people coming in and thinking about what’s the world that we want tomorrow? And there’s some pretty big commitments being made by government as well as large companies, about 20, 25, 20, 30, 20 50 to carbon targets. And you can’t do it alone. You can’t plow the field by yourself. And this is why having many partners and shared knowledge actually helps it achieve quicker. And this is why I also doing these types of podcasts just to great that you guys are engaged in this journey as well and great that your audience are listening to it and if we can all work together, then we can all get there a bit faster.
Kristi Porter (22:01):
Absolutely. So this is logistics with purpose. So of course you were talking about your supply chain a minute ago, so I wanted to ask you a little bit about that as well. You have bamboo fields in China. I’m guessing a lot of your product manufacturing comes from China when you’re trying to do it not only just if you declare that you’ll be doing it in some kind of ethical manner or environmental manner, but then put rigorous standards behind it, you have done and you’re required to do with B Corp about checking out your suppliers. How does that look for you? What kind of process is that to make sure that who you’re working with is who they say they are and who is also working for a common good?
Chris Forbes (22:46):
Yeah, I mean I think I wouldn’t have done this business if I hadn’t gone to China in the first instance and got my eyes on it. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it without Julie, my wife, because she’s Chinese, she speaks the language. And we also put a team in China. So we’ve got five people in China doing quality assurance and procurement. Building a sustainable business is a lot more than taking an Alibaba product and sticking a label on a box. And I think we’ve seen a few people recently that have come short in terms of their product because they think they’re buying the right thing and it’s not really the right thing, but they haven’t really taken ownership of that. And I think that’s something that it’s things about people that create original businesses and founders. They do it in the right way, then you’re actually doing it with a certain degree of diligence.
(23:34):
And that’s definitely a lot of parts to the supply chain. And it’s changed through time as well because we started off with one product, which was toilet tissue, then we did kitchen tile and then we started did straws. And then straws come from a different factory and then we’re sort of looking at, okay, well some of it has to be moved by bars by boat, and then it puts on ocean freight and then ocean freight to distribution. And we distribute in 27 different countries. So some of it goes into centralized distribution into the states or into Antwerp or into the uk. And then some of it we just go like containers directly into the Middle East, for example, or Australia. So as the business evolves, so does your supply chain and you’re always looking for ways to improve the supply chain. In fact, I’m off to China next week to go and film my supply chain because a lot of people think that China’s dirty. And in fact, our factories use solar panels, they use water recycling. They’re all using modern monument manufacturing, which is extremely efficient. And what we want to do is really want to showcase one, the bamboo fuels, but actually also the supply chain and demystify that things from China are dirty or not being powered by coal and actually show people actually this is how things are being done.
Kristi Porter (24:55):
Fantastic. I look forward to watching that in the future. Yes,
Nuria Sierra (24:59):
I was going to say the same.
Kristi Porter (25:02):
So was supply chain your biggest challenge or was there another one that was even
Chris Forbes (25:06):
Bigger? I think challenges, I think working capital was probably the biggest challenge for any FMCG business. When we started this business, we had to buy the products upfront, there’s no lines of credit, and then you’ve got two months for it to be produced and then it’s got maybe two months in the supply chain, a month in the warehouse, and then sometimes 60 days for your clients to pay you. So you can end up with almost nine months of supply chain costs. And if you’re doing, I think within about two years we were doing like a hundred thousand pound a month turnover, you’re then running a million pounds worth of supply chain costs and the banks don’t give you any money at that point in time. And that’s probably the hardest thing that we had to deal with is how do you continue to scale without having good financing or available.
(25:59):
I think it’s a lot better now. There’s been some more entrance into the market that do more working capital finance, but certainly when we were there it was very, very tough. And that’s why we chose equity crowdfunding mainly to be able to create the lines of credit that we needed to be able to continue to scale at the level we were scaling at. And then secondly behind that is a movement of goods. I think we sell about 400,000 units a month. So that’s a lot of boxes, that’s a lot of product, that’s a lot of FMCG goods. So again, that’s kind of requires good systems, good processes, good people.
Nuria Sierra (26:36):
So Chris, looking towards the future, how do you see the role of innovation in sustainable household products evolving and what would be the next for Chicky Panda in its mission to change the way we think about everyday essentials?
Chris Forbes (26:56):
I think changing a toilet roll is probably one of the easiest sustainable things that you can do. It is something that you use every day and if you can, people talk about how can we achieve these large goals at 2030 or 2050? Actually it is inches and yards is how I describe it. So if you can make lots of little steps and actually if everyone makes lots of little steps, then together we are all making very large steps. And I think that’s how I look at household and consumer goods is actually, it’s one of the easiest things to change. Putting in solar panels or water harvesting, they’re very expensive. They take years of payback, they’re certainly quite high risk, but stuff like this is an easy switch. So I think that’s kind of our role and that’s why I think we’ve got around about 12 core products and it just says what category can we play in and how can we make it easy for consumers to change? And probably having high quality products is probably the most important things because people like sustainability, but they don’t want to sacrifice quality. So if you can actually deliver high quality products as well as sustainability, then I think that’s kind of where you become a very interesting business.
Kristi Porter (28:14):
Absolutely. You certainly have an impressive, the way you’ve implemented sustainability from top to bottom. And another thing we haven’t really gotten to discuss yet that I’m curious to hear more about your perspective on is that you’re also implementing more of the circular economy. So what does that look like for Cheeky Panda?
Chris Forbes (28:37):
Yeah, I mean it’s cradle to grave and then it’s looking at, so part of it is more nearshore manufacturing, so all our wipes are done in the UK now. And then it’s also looking about out the benefits of bamboo because it produces lots of oxygen, it absorbs lots of carbon and actually can bamboo and the whole supply chain be net zero? And there’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of groundbreaking work that has to be done to prove that, but that’s certainly something that we are kind of working on to look at that. The phrase we use is every paw print matters because we’re bears, like panda bears, and how can we make sure that the paw prints that we leave behind are the smallest paw prints?
Kristi Porter (29:29):
I love that. And you are, when this comes out, we’ll be wrapping up Earth Month 2024. So given your extensive experience, I’m curious, do you have just something for people, a step that they can take, a question they can ask themselves? You mentioned earlier that sustainability is a journey that we’re all on in some capacity. So what would your advice to people be?
Chris Forbes (29:57):
My advice, the easy one is looking is do I need that plastic? What can I do? If you go to the supermarket or go to the market, can you take reusable fruit bags? You look at the packaging of products and say, well, actually one product’s wrapped in plastic and then the other’s wrapped in recyclable paper make those simple switches. And I think don’t try to overcomplicate it and don’t try to be advanced level before you’ve done the beginner level. Just work through. And then once you understand one thing, then the rest of it all starts to become a lot easier.
Kristi Porter (30:40):
Good advice.
Nuria Sierra (30:41):
Yeah, that’s a great advice. I think because these are small acts and small decisions that we can make on our daily basis that can have a big impact.
Chris Forbes (30:58):
Those say a phrase by if small acts made by millions of people has got the ability to change the world.
Nuria Sierra (31:07):
Exactly. Exactly. No, I love it. I love it. Chris, wrapping up, how can our listeners connect with you and of course, how can they learn more about Tiki Panda and we will make sure? Well,
Chris Forbes (31:21):
I would encourage everybody, if you want to look from me on LinkedIn, it’s just Chris Forbes on LinkedIn, you’ll see my panda hat. That’ll be me. And yeah, if you want to know more about our products, cheeky panda.com, and you can buy these as a consumer, but they’re also available as a business as well. So if you want to have more sustainable products for your staff, then Cheeky Pan worked with national distributors throughout Europe, but for the UK and for the us, and we can supply as many staff as you want with beautiful, soft bamboo products.
Kristi Porter (32:09):
Perfected. You’re sold in how many countries now?
Chris Forbes (32:12):
27 countries?
Nuria Sierra (32:14):
Seven. Wow.
Chris Forbes (32:15):
A lot of Europe. I mean, Europe’s got lots of countries. We sell in a lot of states as well, but I think Europe’s a bit like America’s kind of like the states or countries in the Europe. So you get a lot of countries in Europe. But yeah, and then Middle East and bits of Asia as well.
Nuria Sierra (32:34):
Amazing.
Kristi Porter (32:35):
And congratulations on your success. Thank you for being here with us today. This was a great conversation, and as we said, we heard just a little bit of your story a couple of weeks ago in London, so it was delightful to hear more about you and Julie and the soft side of things, how you’re making the world better for us. So thank you so much for everything you do, and thank you to everyone who tuned in for another episode. Join us again in two weeks and we’ll have another great conversation for you on logistics with purpose. Thanks for being here, everybody. Bye-Bye. Thank you so much.
