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There aren’t too many brands that excite us more than B-Corp companies -(benefit companies). We can be assured that they meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance. With health and wellness being one of society’s highest priorities, it seems that most of us are in a constant search for the healthiest ways to live our everyday life and B-Corp companies can help us feel good about the companies we invest our time and money into. They are commonly known as corporations that are certified clean brands, conscious of their impact on individuals and society as a whole. These companies are known to balance profit and purpose – essentially, B Corporations use business as a force for good.
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So it was exciting for us when we got to talk with founder and CEO of Nutricare, James Dutton, on the origin story of his B-Corp brand – particularly his all natural bandage product, Patchstrips. Now sold in 41 countries around the world with 35,000 retailers, Patchstrips has been an insurmountable success and changed the game when it comes to dressing wounds.
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It all started when James’ son fell off the slide while playing in the park and suffered an injury. After James and his wife, Alysha, dressed their son’s wound with some bandages they already had in their home, they began to notice redness and blistering around the bandage. It turns out that their son’s adverse reaction is quite common. Traditional bandages are usually made from a combination of plastics and toxins such as polyethylene and vinyl, which can leech chemicals like lead and dioxins that become hazardous to our health.
James wanted to develop a product that would bring a cleaner solution, eradicating toxins entirely out of the product. At the time, Alysha had created a company called Jak Organics – the first compostable baby wipe made with essential oils. One of the materials she used in her line was bamboo fiber, so she already had rolls of it at home. From the materials James and Alysha already had, they tried making up their own concoction for their son. Nothing seemed to ease their son’s irritated skin, until they found the solution – bamboo fiber. And that’s how Patchstrips biodegradable bandages were developed.
While standard bandages are made with an array of chemicals, Nutricare’s biodegradable bandages are made from bamboo fiber and a mineral base. James made sure that the compliance and certification around the bamboo was a high priority – natural bamboo fiber, if washed in a clean environment with an organic solvent, and used with a non-toxic product, will retain it’s antimicrobial benefits. Bamboo fiber is also beneficial because it’s a natural fiber that promotes healing and allows the wound to breathe. Moreover, it is vegan friendly and has no B-polymer or synthetics.
Another sustainable aspect of these bandages is that they’re fully compostable, with the longest time to decompose being 3 months, and the shortest being under 1 month. To dispose of your Patchstrip, you can bury them in the soil or a compost. The Patchstrip packaging tubes can also be re-used for other functions by kids, such as making it a toy car or rocketship.
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I love the B-Corp certification because it analyzes every little step of what you’re doing. It’s not just one thing, it’s a plethora of different aspects of the business.
Nutricare practices it’s B-Corp status in many ways – LED lighting used in the business, the concentration on the root of power sources for each operation, and looking into the overall impact of everyday operations. Another main component to Nutricare is the significance of equality; the team is about 50/50 female and male. Although, James is quick to point out that this happened naturally. “Nutricare does not hire on any aspect apart from their passion. These are the people that drive and grow the brand”, says James. By September of 2019, Nutricare was nominated as one of the top 10 honorary B-Corps on a global scale. James hopes that Nutricare continues its growth and will one day become a female-led company.
It was important for Nutricare to give back – from traveling different countries, James had witnessed different diseases affecting children that were coming from various aspects of their surrounding environment. This led James to initiate working with charity groups and schools in Haiti, one of the higher impacted zones in the world. There, James and the team developed and cultivated land into farmland and worked with organizations and donated $100K worth of supplies for school developments in Haiti to support education and the issues around plastic waste. They helped the kids understand proper disposal methods and the way in which they affect the future environment.
In 2020, Nuricare made a commitment to plant more trees in the environment. By working with Trees for the Future, Nutricare was able to plant 20,000 trees in South Africa, and plant a tree in every retail store that carries Patchstrips – so people can be made to feel good about finding the product in the store. Today, over 40,000 trees have been planted by Nutricare.
At home, James and his family make sure they compost and recycle as much as they can, and all household supply items are primarily green products. “I meditate everyday and try to give our team as much flexibility as they need, especially since COVID has impacted everything – so that ties into my personal life as well.”