Brains on the Outside: A Business Ideas Podcast

Naked Sprout: Big sheets of toilet paper, big problems

• Alex and Andrew • Season 2 • Episode 6

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Naked Sprout make toilet rolls out of bamboo. They're super sustainable and the company prides themselves on using no fossil fuels in 99% of their process. That remaining 1%, that's what they wanted us to help with. They currently have to use one gigantic diesel forklift truck to lift the enormous mother rolls of toilet paper that come off their manufacturing process. These huge tonne and a half rolls are later cut down to the bog rolls you know and love and use but until then Naked Sprout has to cart them about their factory. Can we help them? Can we make them even greener? Of course we can.

Some of our ideas: What if we only had one toilet between us all? What if you could cut your own toilet paper? What if Naked Sprout was also a housing company?

Thank you Rosie, who works in Content and Community at Naked Sprout, for getting in touch with us. Dear listener, how would you solve her problem? Email us at: brainsontheoutside@gmail.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brainsontheoutside/ 

Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brainsontheoutside 

Thank you to Rich Endersby-Marsh for our theme music: https://soundcloud.com/rich-marsh 

Keep your brains on the outside! xo

Alex:

Hey, Andrew.

Andrew:

Hey, Alex.

Alex:

What's this?

Andrew:

This is Brains on the Outside.

Alex:

What's that?

Andrew:

Well, Alex is a podcast where we dream up ridiculous solutions to the world's biggest business issues.

Alex:

Each week we take an impossible problem from a real business and we just solve it.

Andrew:

This week, Naked Sprout.

Alex:

Wait, Naked Sprout? The toilet roll, people. How much are we getting paid?

Andrew:

Well, as ever, Alex and you should know this, we're doing it at the goodness of our own hearts. There's no sponsorships, no parks, no bribes, no free toilet paper, nothing.

Alex:

Andrew, can I just take a moment to really appreciate our new theme tune?

Andrew:

Yes, I feel take this little beat because every other week we do this, we always accidentally, accidentally forget we do.

Alex:

Rich Endersby Marsh, who has made our theme tune, is such a creative and musical genius that I really felt like he actually, he deserves this spot right up front in the episode.

Andrew:

Yep. Before we even get to the core point of the episode, which is toilet paper.

Alex:

Rich, headline slot, headline act in our podcast.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Rich, thank you so much.

Andrew:

It's been quite a long time since we recorded an episode, Alex. we've had a lot of ideas sitting in the mailbox and businesses all problems, but it's been a few weeks. Do you, do you feel ready to hear this? Do you feel ready to go?

Alex:

I feel like, I am brimming with creative juices.

Andrew:

That is the sort of thing that will come back to haunt you in a review. Alex, Claire was brimming with creative juices. We disagree. Two stars.

Alex:

Who's only half full of creative juices. What do we got this week? Andrew?

Andrew:

We have got a question from the toilet paper manufacturer, Naked Sprout. Nice. This is from Rosie in the content and community team at Naked Sprout. At, Naked Sprout, we are really proud that we use 100% renewable energy in our factory. From the on site solar panels, the power computers, to the methane from the local sheep farms that we burn in our furnace. Our, manufacturing operation is entirely fossil fuel free, apart from one small detail. Individual loo rolls are cut down from long logs of toilet roll which are themselves come from huge reels called the parent rolls. Each parent roll weighs around 1.5 tonnes. We've attached a picture of our founders, Leela and Tom, standing with a parent roll so you can see just how big they are. We mostly use electrical forklifts at our factory, which we power from our own renewable energy generators. But parent rolls are just too heavy for them to lift. So we currently use standard Forklifts powered by diesel to move parent rolls around the factory. The diesel in our forklifts are the only fossil fuel in our production process. We expect advances in electric forklift technology will allow us to retire our diesel forklifts in the next few years. But in the meantime, perhaps you can think of a better way of shifting these giant loo roles.

Alex:

My immediate thought off the back of this is that if those are the parent rolls, then the loo rolls that we use in our houses are the baby loo rolls.

Andrew:

They're the baby ones?

Alex:

Yeah, they're the babies.

Andrew:

So if you can see this picture I'm looking at there, there it is.

Alex:

Whoa.

Andrew:

It is a very, very, very large, very large piece of toilet paper that is huge. It's probably like over a metre tall, like in diameter. And it's, I don't know, quite a lot larger than your average toilet.

Alex:

It's like two or three metres wide. Like it actually looks unwieldily large. Like you, if you tore a sheet off that, you actually couldn't use it, it would be like a blanket.

Andrew:

The actual device it's connected to as well is made out of just pure steel or something. It's like, it looks very heavy. Basically.

Alex:

It looks industrial. It looks like an industrial sized massive paint roller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

Andrew:

Now Alex, like every week we're just here to fix this problem for them. This it does seem like quite a big problem for them. It's the only diesel who'd be 100% fossil fuel free. If we can crack this in the next 25 minutes. Oh yeah, they use the sheep, the sheep methane. Yeah.

Alex:

Do they feed sprouts to the sheep for extra methane?

Andrew:

It's such a polite way of saying.

Alex:

Yeah, farts.

Andrew:

Farts, yeah. Like one end goes to m the sprouts and the other end is. I don't even know. I don't even want to imagine the contraption that's capturing that from the sheep.

Alex:

Yeah. Okay.

Andrew:

Yeah. So thank you so much Rosie for getting in contact. Alex, should we break this down, break this problem down and then try and find just the perfect, a perfect amazing solution?

Alex:

Yeah, I think we should do that. I think we obviously have. So the process is they take the bamboo and they turn that into giant big toilet paper. Big toilet paper even bigger than elephants. Toilet paper. Toilet paper, yeah. And then they take the toilet papers off that, the parent roll and they put that onto a smaller parent roll.

Andrew:

The logs.

Alex:

The logs.

Andrew:

Pretty funny term for toilet paper as well.

Alex:

And then they Take the logs, which is like the teenager roles, and they cut those down into the baby roles.

Andrew:

Kind of like a Benjamin Button process.

Alex:

It is.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

It is like a Benjamin Button. It's like the weirdest kind of reproduction process known to humans. Okay.

Andrew:

I suppose there's a lot we don't know about this process. We don't know, like why, like, why do they have to move this big thing? Yeah.

Alex:

Why do they not just leave it where it is?

Andrew:

Yeah. Why can't it just stay there? We don't know that. We don't know. Because also, they've had to move it at some point. They've had to birth it from the bamboo at some point. So why can't I just stay at that place?

Alex:

Well, I presume the bamboo gets pulped, and then the pulp gets turned into the paper, and then the paper, as it dries, gets rolled onto the big roll.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

And then in order to make a new big roll so they can make no more toilet paper, they have to move that roll.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

I mean, the most obvious answer here is you just put the factory at the top of a hill and roll it down.

Andrew:

You just roll it down. That's.

Alex:

You just let go of it. You just let it go.

Andrew:

See, this is. They're quite fortunate really, in a sense where a law of industry, the thing, you know, they are using their natural bamboo and then turning into this big thing that, they can. They can move with a forklift. But a lot of industry that extracts natural things from the earth don't have that luxury to move it. Like, if you're drilling for oil.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

It's. You can't move the North Sea oil fields. Right. If you got a big, big mine somewhere, you can't move the mine. So a lot of other industry have gone around this fact that you can't move the thing you've made.

Alex:

Yeah. In fact, actually, when you think about oil and mines, this the exact opposite of what you want to be doing, which is taking stuff from far down and, bringing it up.

Andrew:

Up.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

So they're pretty lucky that they could just build on top of a hill and roll down. Yeah.

Alex:

So actually, what? Well, if you build on top of a hill, you have an additional problem of getting the logs up the hill and getting the bamboo up the hill to start with. Yeah. So you have to, on the top.

Andrew:

Of the hill, grow the bamboo.

Alex:

Bamboo, yeah. Halfway down the hill. Toilet roll factory.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Bottom of the hill. Everybody lives with their toilets.

Andrew:

Everybody.

Alex:

Everybody lives at the bottom of the hill.

Andrew:

It kind Of I imagine this is a massive tower, that their warehouse is now a massive tower where they can just drop bamboo down this huge chute and it comes out the other end as a little tiny baby roll.

Alex:

Maybe this is. You need to pivot. Naked sprout. Need to pivot from just making toilet rolls into housing where your toilet roll is guaranteed 100% energy efficient and sustainable. So you buy a house at the bottom of the hill and you know that your toilet rolls are just. The whole lot is gravity powered.

Andrew:

So this is a very. This is I. This is where reality starts to hit us, I think, where it's like, I don't know the stats. You know, they're always making a business selling the people toilet. Vulnerable people. Right. But I'm not sure how many like hardcore toilet paper enthusiasts they are who sort of centre their living situation and lives around the idea that they could have gravity powered toilet paper.

Alex:

But this is, I mean, ah, this is for the future.

Andrew:

This is it.

Alex:

So you have to. Negasp. Had to go all in on the marketing campaign for if you want to keep the world in a good condition for your kids.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Well, you better move to our housing at the bottom of this hill.

Andrew:

So they're housing providers and on the side they made toilet. So wait, and the reason this will fix their problem is because the big toilet paper never has them moved from the top of the hill.

Alex:

Well, no, because they cut down the bamboo.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

And then they just push the bamboo down the hill.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

And then it gets caught by the toilet paper factory.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Right. And they turn that bamboo into the giant toilet paper rolls. Rolls.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

And then they roll that down to the log making machine and they make the toilet paper logs and then they just roll it down to the individual baby toilet paper making machine and chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. Chopped into small rolls, roll those down the hill directly into the houses.

Andrew:

I imagine that that, chopping process itself could be automated. You could just have a big like you just launched off the side of the hill and there is just like freestanding blades on the hill that just chopping in half and half again and half again and half again.

Alex:

Yeah. So you don't even, you know. Yeah. Gravity does all of the work.

Andrew:

In fact, you're greener. Right. So you don't need to have any stuff and you've saved a lot of probably actual, actual work that has to be done by lugging things through the factory. You saved a lot of delivery costs as well.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

I mean your customer base is now a lot smaller but you're making that up because they're paying you rent as well. They also have a natural resource to build the house as well, which is the wood.

Alex:

The bamboo.

Andrew:

The bamboo is right there.

Alex:

Build the houses. There are some risks involved, some bigger than others.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Rain is a bit of an issue. If it ever rains on the hill and you're rolling the toilet rolls down the hill and they get wet, that's bad.

Andrew:

Yeah. Okay.

Alex:

and also for that really, really big roll, if you roll that down the hill and don't catch it. That's it.

Andrew:

That's it.

Alex:

You're in it. That everyone at the bottom of the hill is in a bad spot, then. Yeah.

Andrew:

Your house getting demolished, crushed by massive toast wall.

Alex:

You've made the news.

Andrew:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Alex:

But, Okay, I feel like in contrast to many of our episodes, we've gone completely unhinged at the beginning.

Andrew:

Yeah. Well, I was actually going to open by saying. I was going to say a ground rule.

Alex:

Right.

Andrew:

Which I think you've already. You've already. You're already following it. But like, they've already suggesting about getting electric. Ah, forklift.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Which I'm actually very much against.

Alex:

I think it's super.

Andrew:

I'm super against it.

Alex:

Well, this is an interesting position.

Andrew:

Yeah, Yeah. I think it's a bad idea for them. Specifically for them. I've seen enough, Tesla car fire videos on YouTube.

Alex:

Oh, boy.

Andrew:

To know that those batteries, if you get one going, it does not stop. And their warehouse. Right.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Is like perfect. They've got a lot of dry paper that could go up like that. Right.

Alex:

Oh, yeah.

Andrew:

So my point was actually like, they were kind of pitching this to us as an interim solution. I m. Think no, this is it. This is the whole thing. We're going to try and get rid of the forklift at all. Yeah.

Alex:

You don't need it at all.

Andrew:

Yeah. So your idea, actually, though unconventional, it has some merit in some ways because you don't need a forklift at all.

Alex:

You don't need a forklift. It is a massive pivot for them as a business.

Andrew:

So can I suggest a slightly smaller pivot?

Alex:

Okay. Yeah.

Andrew:

Right. So what is the problem? The problem is they have to move this big toilet roll.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

And, why is that a problem? Right.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Well, because they have it in the first place.

Alex:

Okay.

Andrew:

We're just going to get rid of it. And that thing, as we discussed earlier in our sort of weak understanding of the paper making process, you mulch it and then you make the big roll.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

What if the whole thing is just you send people the mulch themselves and it's like they make their own toilet paper.

Alex:

Well, okay, so I guess. I guess you can go to the supermarket and you can buy pasta.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

But if you're, a good and interested cook, you can make pasta at home.

Andrew:

Exactly.

Alex:

And you have your own pasta machine. And that pasta is always going to be better than the pasta that you make that you buy from the supermarket. So if you're sending the mulch.

Andrew:

Yeah. Direct to the house machine.

Alex:

You put it through the squisher.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

Flatten it. You get a lot of. You get a lot of control. Yeah. Over the thickness, how quilted it is. How many ply. Yeah. Okay.

Andrew:

I imagine the process is kind of like making a croissant when you have to fold things over and over again for each ply. you got four ply, five ply. There's. There's two big things here that I think makes this idea a bit of a winner. I think it's closer to Naked Sprout's current, sort of vibe and marketing style that it is far away. Right.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

They're kind of like, you know, they kind of. It's cool brand. And making your own stuff, artisanal, handcrafted products is also pretty cool. Right. So I think there's scope there to pivot into like, well, you can make your own stuff and that's even cooler. Also, what's the big problem with toilet paper? What's, the problem with it? I think, well, a problem is it's pretty easy to run out and have none left.

Alex:

Okay.

Andrew:

Imagine right. In this world you could have the toilet paper next to your toilet, like normal. And then you would have like. Imagine a crank. Like a pasta maker. Yeah. With two rolls. And you crank it and you could pour the pulp down and instantly make you have that next to the toilet as well.

Alex:

Right.

Andrew:

So it was directly when you needed it. You could make it fresh. So it was the fresh toilet paper always. Yeah. So you'd have your toilet paper bad stuff. Right. just for a reserve. And then you'd have like a jar of your pulp ready to go.

Alex:

Right.

Andrew:

And this also point three is that people like having jars of weird stuff in their flat. Right.

Alex:

Okay.

Andrew:

People have, sourdough starters.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

I live with a guy who just grew his own mushrooms in bags.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

If you want to make your own kombucha.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

You need a jar of stuff.

Alex:

Okay.

Andrew:

Why is the toilet any different?

Alex:

I kind of as Slightly speechless. But I do like this, I like this idea because I can see additional ways in which you can monetize this.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Right. I'm going to sell you the mulch but I'm also going to sell you a bunch of mix ins that you can use to customise your toilet paper. And I'm going to sell you a mould so that you can, you know, some people like it when they get the puppies on the paper. Well, you want a picture of yourself on your toilet paper.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

You want a picture of your worst enemy on your toilet paper.

Andrew:

That's good as well. Yeah, here we go. Because that's like you have coconut flavouring also. Flavouring. That's super interesting. And I used to have bought them to the subscription service as well. You send them new stuff. You send them new mulch every month.

Alex:

Exactly.

Andrew:

You could sell them new rollers for the toilet paper making contraption you've built that actually just put the. Your face on it directly prints it.

Alex:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's gotta be it. And then you get into the new printer business model where you're selling.

Andrew:

Oh my God.

Alex:

By the sheet and you just. We just send you the refill of mulch.

Andrew:

You're trying to put your homemade mulch here and it's like. Nope, nope, nope.

Alex:

Go. Did the warranty. Yeah.

Andrew:

Naked sprout mulch only.

Alex:

And it And when that, when you do that it always stops when you're sitting there.

Andrew:

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Because that's. You're not going to. With a, with a piece of paper. It's pretty rare that you need that thing printed right now. It's pretty rare that you need that thing printed immediately. M. But you don't want your toilet paper thing to void its warranty as you're sitting there.

Alex:

Yeah. With the ultimate hammer just hanging over, isn't it?

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah. You're going to have to buy it and we sell it in special. I mean we feel like we're slightly getting away from the sustainability angle a little bit because we're selling you back. You're going to have to sell a bag which has got a digital thing on it which is like signed so that it.

Andrew:

That's true.

Alex:

But you know, so let's just gloss over that it's fine. Well we're making money. That's what's important.

Andrew:

We're a business focused podcast. They know that when they send us the questions. But should we do. There's probably some carbon accounting we could do to make this whole thing balance. Out. Right. Okay. Because now they're not. They're not running their diesel forklift.

Alex:

Right?

Andrew:

Yeah. They've turned that off.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

They don't now run most of the manufacturing process that's been pushed onto us. all they have to do is buy and sell bamboo. We've kind of pivoted them, though, into a software company that now that makes like a, DRM and restrictions for toilet paper. But we have simplified the manufacturing process quite a lot, I think, and create sort of cool new cultural thing of make your own toilet paper.

Alex:

So so far we have pivoted them either into housing or into becoming a DRM software company.

Andrew:

yeah. I like to think of it as empowering their customers to take control of their toilet habits. No longer are you beholden to big toilet paper. You can always make the toilet paper yourself. I love that.

Alex:

That's incredible marketing.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

You can sell cookbooks, recipes. You could sell them the bamboo directly if they wanted to mulch for themselves. I think there's a lot of home.

Alex:

Mulching, community mulching in m. My state here. There's quite a lot of apple trees. Once a year they hire a press and everyone goes and presses their apples. Once a year they hire, a community mulcher. Everyone goes and mulches all the books that they don't want, along with a bunch of bamboo that they've bought from us.

Andrew:

Oh, this is. You've actually come out because they're pretty good here. Because what's going to happen is a lot of people are going to like, buy this and realise that making toilet paper is hard and laborious and then naked sprout have to swoop back in.

Alex:

Oh, the circle of life.

Andrew:

The circle of life.

Alex:

Well, maybe not life. Maybe commerce. The circle of commerce. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew:

They need either sell you proper toilet paper again or sell you very expensive lessons. Do mulching.

Alex:

This is. This is so good. It's actually very, very similar in so many ways to Huell, who sold a food replacement.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

And are now back into selling food.

Andrew:

Like food to you.

Alex:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in a very similar way, because the texture of Huel is probably exactly the same as the texture of Unbolt toilet paper.

Andrew:

Perfect crossover. I'm kind of talking myself into this idea, actually.

Alex:

it is a perfect crossover, like Fuel X Sprout. It does both jobs at once. You could turn it into toilet paper or you could just eat it.

Andrew:

Oh, that's the future. Right.

Alex:

I think you could combine all of these things as well because you could have Your mulching factory at the top of a hill just pipes down directly. Just pipe it down straight into people's houses.

Andrew:

You have a tap next to your. You have like a bidet that's constantly piped into the naked sprout dam of toilet paper mulch.

Alex:

What is the reservoir? What is the difference between printer paper and toilet paper? Because you just, Is it just a different head on the, on the, on the machine? Yeah, I guess never buy printed paper again.

Andrew:

I guess it's just fineness. Right. It's how much are you going to crank it through your paper maker?

Alex:

Andrew, I can't believe that people get these ideas entirely for free.

Andrew:

Premium business ideas. This is step change pivots people's industry reinventing paper and how you go to the toilet for free.

Alex:

Shall we, go to the ads, get paid. Yes. And then come back. Andrew, it's time to get paid. Time to make bank.

Andrew:

Yeah. So this is a really innovative company working a field tangential to naked, sprout. This is, a toilet company. They make toilets. But the big twist is you can get that toilet pumped into somebody else's house.

Alex:

That sounds great, but why would I want that?

Andrew:

Well, it's, it's fairly simple.

Alex:

Ask.

Andrew:

It's when you, when you want to make it somebody else. It's when you want to make it somebody else's problem.

Alex:

All right. Okay. It's like if you're a, if you're a serial toilet blocker. is this the problem if you're getting through one of those big rolls every time you go.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

You just block somebody else's pipes up.

Andrew:

That's actually the tagline. Block someone else's pipes for once. Yeah. They come and they just, they'll tell you, they'll interview you about who you're beefing with that month. Is it your boss is your brother in law? Is it like just your enemy? And they'll just plum your toilet into theirs. Wow.

Alex:

And will they pipe it up over.

Andrew:

Any distance you pay per, mile?

Alex:

Oh, wow. Okay.

Andrew:

it's a pretty good business model actually. You don't pay. They know where your toilet is. They, have a lot of ways of messing with you.

Alex:

Oh, God.

Andrew:

Okay. So they always get paid.

Alex:

Wow. Oh my God. Wow.

Andrew:

Good.

Alex:

I'm really glad that we have real, actual, real ads on here so that if I'd absolutely lost it during the ad break. We're still getting paid.

Andrew:

We're still getting paid.

Alex:

Still getting paid.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Oh my God. I'm m actually crying. Okay.

Andrew:

Keith I've tried to imagine actually going to a normal plumber and not m. This real plumbing company be like, hey, can you just. I live here. I know Alex lives over there, but could you. Do you think you could link them together?

Alex:

Okay. Right, good. wonderful. That's great. what do we do now?

Andrew:

Well, now we, I'm sure other companies have, heard. Been listening to this and they've gone, wow, I wish my product, business or service were being advertised on this show.

Alex:

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Andrew:

And if they felt like that, how would they make that feeling known?

Alex:

Well, the best way to do that, Andrew, would be to email us on, brainsontheoutsidemail, dot com.

Andrew:

So before we move on to our next whatever's gonna happen next, I would like to just defend my, the previous idea a little bit more because, like, you know, there's a lot of arts and crafts stuff out there right now.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Like I. This idea, it has legs. You can go and make pasta. You can go and you can make like, pieces of paper. There's a paper making classes now. I think this is just. That was just the next. This is the next step, I guess.

Alex:

That, that, that you could, you could actually just sell the universal flattening device, which is for everything.

Andrew:

Everything. Yep.

Alex:

Yeah. You want to make toilet paper, you want to make pasta, you want to make other flat stuff. American cheese.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

you just put it through this machine. I do think it is good. I mean, I've definitely seen make it at Home paper kits. Yeah, I've never seen a make it at home toilet paper kit.

Andrew:

I think a lot of, like, you get a lot of satisfaction though, out of making something you use. Right. This isn't, this is like, ah, something you're actually going to actively use. I think people would get a kick out of it. or the very least it could be their next April Fools joke.

Alex:

My only worry about this is, whether the thing that Naked Sprout are selling. Obviously there's a big sustainability angle to that. but is the quality of their toilet paper, is it entirely in the quality of the mulch?

Andrew:

Oh. Or is it press?

Alex:

Or is it the quality of the pressing process that's actually making it like super soft and luxurious?

Andrew:

so they could still sell toilet paper, right? Like, yeah, you, you buy. You still buy pasta.

Alex:

Yeah, that's true.

Andrew:

so, yeah. Is it based on. I'm on their website right now looking at, sort of things they sell themselves on. It's, Yeah, a lot of eco stuff's. Unbleached. It's made in Europe. they have actually, they, they do go. They go, they go pretty hard. In every other toilet paper cupboard, there's actually a table here, Alex, where they're calling out every other person.

Alex:

Oh, wow.

Andrew:

Naked sprout. They don't fuck about like, is. Who gives a crap? B Corp. No, it's a brutal, brutal sector, it seems. So do you think a bit of the, do you think a bit of the value, what they're bringing to the table is the quality of the press?

Alex:

I do wonder that. I do wonder whether the process that they're putting it through, the love and care and attention that they're putting into the pressing, is that part of it? Is that what they're selling or are they selling? I mean, they must be selling that, right? Nobody wants to buy toilet paper that's incredibly highly sustainable, but it's like a Brillo pad or sandpaper. Like nobody wants that. So we bear that in mind, I guess we can't pivot them entirely into a different business model.

Andrew:

Okay.

Alex:

They have to continue to make toilet paper.

Andrew:

Okay, yeah, I do see that. I do see that.

Alex:

Yeah. I don't understand why you couldn't have a machine that just dumps out the small toilet, the small rolls off the bat. Like, why do you have to have these interim rolls? Why do you have to have the really big one and then the logs?

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Is it like a, is it like a Swiss roll situation? The logs where you just like. It's actually just like one enormously long toilet roll that they then cut into pieces? Oh. Or is it like. Oh, no, it's just a smaller version that we then unroll that and roll that onto smaller rolls. I don't understand.

Andrew:

Oh, I don't know either. But you mean like. I guess, yeah. Is the log the same width as a normal toilet paper? Is that what you're saying? Or is it. Yeah. I don't know.

Alex:

Or is. Well, yeah. Is it the same circumference. As a normal toilet paper? And then they just slice it into toilet papers? Toilet rolls.

Andrew:

So does a toilet paper have to be on a roll? Oh, could you just. Could someone go with a chainsaw to the big roll and cut it up into random shapes and just ship that out? Why is it on a roll?

Alex:

That's a very interesting toilet paper. Existential question.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Why is it on a roll?

Andrew:

Because this problem could potentially be solved. Because they need to move it about, I presume. Because you need specialist equipment to, I presume to make it into the law, to make it into small role. But you might not need that equipment and therefore you might not need to move it. If you just could chop it up into any old random shape and chuck it in a box to send out.

Alex:

I guess there are benefits of having it on a roll. Like it's easy to store in the bathroom.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

We have the device for that already.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

you can have a length that is appropriate to you.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

As much as you want. And it's kind of familiar, though.

Andrew:

It's familiar, yeah.

Alex:

If someone turned up at my house with a ream of toilet paper instead of a roll of 500 sheets of A4 but toilet paper instead, or A. Ah, five but toilet paper, how would I feel about. I'd feel like I was in a hotel lobby bathroom all the time. Where you get those machines that have a sheet at a time.

Andrew:

Is there a scenario, though, where if the hypothesis is we don't make them in the rules, we chop them up a different way, we get a lot. We can make that a lot cheaper because it's more standard equipment. Or just gather the chainsaw chopping any random machine sticking in a bag. If it was cheaper, is there a price that toilet paper would have to be, even though it's a weird shape, that you would then choose that over something that cost a lot more?

Alex:

Are you saying that it's like, the broken biscuits box that you could buy?

Andrew:

Yes, it's the odd shit vegetables that Tesco sell that are cheaper. It's that. Yes, exactly that.

Alex:

The seconds that you get from the pottery show, it is a bag.

Andrew:

You have got a bag full of loose bits of toilet paper of different shapes and sizes and ply.

Alex:

I don't think that there is a cheapness that. That could get to where I would want to buy that.

Andrew:

Okay.

Alex:

Where I would want to just reach into a bag and pull out a random sized shaped adept piece of toilet paper.

Andrew:

I feel. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. And, But do you think a market would exist for it? Daddy would go for that.

Alex:

I mean, I feel like the only reason that anybody would actually go for that is because they couldn't afford.

Andrew:

Okay. Yeah.

Alex:

It. In a different way.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Like, it's not like buying a box of broken biscuits, which is kind of a cheeky treat.

Andrew:

That's a cheat. Yep. Yep.

Alex:

Yeah. It's more like this thing that you need to stay hygienic and clean.

Andrew:

Yeah. Because I was kind of hoping it would have the same sort of vibe as making your own toilet paper. That's a bit edgy and cool, but. No, I think you're right. I think it's, Maybe broken biscuit bin of toilet paper isn't the future.

Alex:

Yeah. If I just riff on that though. What if you could buy toilet paper and it was more like a big stack of post it notes, but each post it note was made out of toilet paper. So it wasn't just like an unwieldy pile or bag full of stuff. They were regular sizes.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

And it was like they were stacked up in a nice stack and they kind of stuck together a little bit and you just peel one off the top.

Andrew:

What would that sticky soft be? It was kind of like a wet. Wet sort of material rather than like, Glue.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

But you wouldn't, you wouldn't want that. But like sort of a wet. Actually maybe make the toilet paper better.

Alex:

Nice.

Andrew:

If there's a bit.

Alex:

A small chunk moisturiser.

Andrew:

Yes. And that square like.

Alex:

Like the way that you get on the Gillette razors, you get the blades and then you get the moisturising strip.

Andrew:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does. Does this get rid of the diesel?

Alex:

I'm, Probably not. It just changes the toilet paper. You know how there's a lot of strongman competitions.

Andrew:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I love this already. Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah. What if it was the strongman competition? They just ran a daily strongman competition and it was just to push this massive role from here to there.

Andrew:

I had a very similar idea which was, why don't you host daily team building challenges in your, factory in your manufacturing plan, which is which team can move with Big 12 paper farthest.

Alex:

That's actually really good because I would love to participate in that.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Like if I turned up and there were 20 other teams there and there were 20 giant roles and they were like, your team building thing is get this from here to over there and you have one hour to do it and find a way of doing it. And I had to do that. I would be there for that.

Andrew:

Kind of like a taskmaster task.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

but like it was like we would. Me and you would shop and make sure it was like hyper, hyper freaking competitive.

Alex:

Unbelievably competitive. Yeah.

Andrew:

Like, almost to a level where people be like, oh, I don't know, but this is too competitive. That's the level where they get people really amped up about this toilet paper.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

And get them to move it.

Alex:

At least if someone got squished by the toilet roll. Massive toilet roll. It would automatically clean itself up.

Andrew:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex:

Or maybe you don't get squished because it's soft. It didn't look soft, though.

Andrew:

They did say it weighed one and a half tonnes.

Alex:

Yeah, yeah. That doesn't sound the best.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

To get switched by that. But that just adds to the Daisy.

Andrew:

Adds to the tension, that adds to the competitiveness now. Right.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Because if you be like, oh, team 14 broke their leg last time because harms got squished. That's a lot. That's a lot of trash talk you can get from that.

Alex:

It's kind of like Hunger Games.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

This is even in this conversation, this last two minutes, we've devolved from, like, strongman competition. Taskmaster Hunger Games.

Alex:

I like the corporate thing. I think that's fun.

Andrew:

Corporate. Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah. I think. I think, you know, if I. If I was doing this for real, if I was trying to solve this problem for real, that's what I would do, actually, is, is delegate the solution out to a bunch of other people and see what they came up with.

Andrew:

That's actually exactly what Rosie has done here.

Alex:

Yeah. I bet she wasn't expecting this, though.

Andrew:

Yeah. I don't think. There's this idea that no one who asks Deloitte for help can get fired. Right. If Rosie came back and pitched, we're gonna chuck the toilet paper down the hill into a bunch of blades to the CEO, I'd worry about our job a little bit, but.

Alex:

I got it. I got it.

Andrew:

Oh, okay.

Alex:

I got it. Every year, thousands, Hundreds of thousands of people go out to go and pick their own strawberries.

Andrew:

Right.

Alex:

What if you went out to go and cut your own toilet roll?

Andrew:

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Alex:

you go and you cut it off the massive one yourself. You choose which bit you want and you're like, you cut it off yourself.

Andrew:

That is actually a great middle ground between make your own with the pulp and, They're making it for you.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Wow. You go there with a Tesco bag, a Stanley knife, you just have at it.

Alex:

Yeah. You just cut the bit you want.

Andrew:

Love it.

Alex:

And then they weigh it and that's what you take home. And they charge you by weight.

Andrew:

Yeah. that'd be a lot of fun.

Alex:

I think it'd be good. I think, yeah, they just. You also, because. So actually this works because the reason that you need the forklift is to move the giant roll from one place to another so that you can make another giant roll.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

If your one giant roll is expensive enough and you're making enough money off that you don't need to make another one.

Andrew:

Can I make it? Okay, a little suggestion there.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

We're gonna have to. Sorry, we're gonna have to move the role a bit. So we might not have gotten a bit of this, the forklift. But what if there was a pop up shop? Like you could actually do this. You could go somewhere the centre of Ladoo and it was a nice fancy, very modern Apple Store esque experience. But you just went with an axe and you got your own toilet paper for the year. I think that would be great. And I think that could happen.

Alex:

I can see that. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew:

They're gonna need a lot more diesel powered machines to get it there but.

Alex:

And people would pay a premium for that. Yeah, it's not, it's not so much of an issue. So there is another. You've. You've touched on something quite. Because that's actually moving it a long way. So actually what you want to do, if you want to reduce your, you know, if you can't remove your diesel reliance, you want to minimise it. You want to make it move the diesel thing as little distance as possible. Yeah. So yeah. So it could be a little nudge and then you actually use the gravity. There is an app like to put my serious hat on. There is an actual factory where they, I think they make cars. It might have been MG maybe. And they changed their factory so that it was top of a hill to the bottom of a hill. So they just rolled the cars down under gravity. Like literally. That's actually what they did because they were having to push stuff back up. Yeah. and so they reorganised so you could make it that. So then you just need a little nudge to your you know, you still carrying it in your forklift. You just nudge it, nudge it over there and then you free roll, free ride down there down to the next machine.

Andrew:

Right.

Alex:

It's not so, not so much of an issue. You also can generate energy that way. Oh my God. Actually you do just roll it down and you generate energy by the rolling down because it's a big roll. You actually do that. You actually make it so that you generate energy with this massive roll. Every time it goes anywhere you roll.

Andrew:

It down, you imagine it balances the carbon books so you can nudge it a little bit with diesel thing because that roll is going to balance everything out.

Alex:

Yeah. You put it on a big chain and you hold it at the top and that chain pulls the generator and the Generator is like. Yeah. As you roll it down to the next bit and you're controlling the descent with breaking but like you're actually generating lots of power. Like actually. Yeah, yeah. I mean there's a lot of things where you could roll stuff to make it. To make energy. Like I mean literally roll it down somewhere.

Andrew:

Yeah. I mean there's a perfect shape for it.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Surrender name as well. A roll. Yeah. My final thought on this and it's I don't know, I'm not sure they should adopt this idea. But I guess I'm just playing in the space of moving the toilet roll as little as possible. What if you had to go to Naked Sprout manufacturing plant to go to the toilet?

Alex:

What if they were the toilet?

Andrew:

They were the toilet. They have just like thousands of poor to lose and a giant roll and that's it.

Alex:

Actually you've hit on something really, really important there which is like they're worried about. There are a couple of diesel powered forklifts when actually they're shipping toilet rolls in diesel trucks all over the country.

Andrew:

Exactly. People should go onto them. Right?

Alex:

Yeah. you minimise that.

Andrew:

You also lots of benefits downstream of this. we need to build more houses, you know, in the UK housing shortage. So to make houses smaller, I guess take the toilet out.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Houses are, you know, still quite complex objects to build. a test automated process like prefab ones. And one like the big difficulty with that is how do you put the plumbing in if it's like going made by a machine? Well now you don't because the toilet isn't in the house anymore.

Alex:

Right.

Andrew:

We have lived for hundreds, if not thousands of years with toilets outside and ah, for quite a long time people had the toilet in a box outside. Indoor toilets are kind of a modern bougie invention. You know, I think go back to basics. Have to travel to the Naked Sprout Depot to poop.

Alex:

I can see this working. I think if you had to travel to one place in the country, it's not so good. But if, but they can optimise a lot and it's like one place per city.

Andrew:

Well, exactly. And that is a. We've already, that's massively increased the revenue they're taking in. They know that they have to be in every city.

Alex:

Yeah. And you can see a tiered pricing model here where you can pay a subscription. You pay a subscription to use the toilet.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

You get the good Naked Sprout toilet paper. You are being good for the environment.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

You pay the low subscription, you get a nice toilet, it's fine. You pay the high subscription, you get that plush like leather seat.

Andrew:

Oh, yeah, the fire supply.

Alex:

Yeah. You get the heated seat there. The heated toilet roll maybe, I don't know. But you get the nice experience.

Andrew:

Now, Alex, the haters are going to say, I don't want to have To Go Travel 45 minutes to go to the toilet. Yeah, but you're going to commute to work anyway. Just do it on the way to work, you know, do it on the way back from work. So it's easy.

Alex:

Yeah, we just take the toilets out of people's houses and they only go at work.

Andrew:

Getting people back to the office.

Alex:

Getting people back to the office.

Andrew:

That's. Yeah, that's it. I bet right now, somewhere in the naked Sprout office, someone's going, how can we get people back into our offices? And ah, they don't know that they're sitting on to answer themselves. The comp. Oh my God, the company who sponsored us today, that mess up people's plumbing, they could hire them and begin this process just messing people's toilets up.

Alex:

Oh, man. Now I have to try and hold it together. I think this is the thing. And actually you market it in different ways. Right. If I put my, yeah, ah, if I put my commercial hat on again. Because you're marketing towards, you're marketing towards the common person by being like, poop on company time.

Andrew:

Oh, that's, oh, that's good.

Alex:

But you're marketing to the businesses like, oh, you're becoming more sustainable, you're helping your employees become more sustainable. Your carbon accounting, you can take this into account.

Andrew:

Yeah. You're going to hit all, your ESG targets via this. I thought you were going to say this is like you're doing your bit for the country. You're doing your bit, you know, to help the climate. But no, I think sticking it to the man. This is actually an anti capitalist act you're doing by going into your office and working for eight hours a day and then pooping and then going back home.

Alex:

Exactly. Yeah.

Andrew:

Love it. Okay, so we've had a lot of good ideas. I think we each need to boil this down to a few thoughts we can present back to Rosie to take to the CEO.

Alex:

And there's a common theme.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

Of build your factory on the top of a hill or halfway up a hill. Many of these solutions require that. Many of the things we talked about require that. If I was posting, noting them all out and I was clustering them. I would cluster them up and they'd be like, oh, there's a big cluster around factory on a hill.

Andrew:

Okay.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Let gravity do all your work for you.

Alex:

Let gravity do a lot of work. I actually really like legitimately in a real way generating electricity by rolling the big rolls downhill.

Andrew:

Yep.

Alex:

Big fan of that in the. In a real sense as an actual serious thing to do. I think that's great fun.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

you could use the downward motion of the big rolls to lift the logs up the hill as well.

Andrew:

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

So like some interesting things. Yep.

Alex:

Yeah. But I also do like the. Go and collect your own toilet roll from a centralised pop up shop.

Andrew:

Yes. The problem is we've got a lot of good ideas at our fingertips here. I think centralised pop shop's fun. They could do that real talk as a marketing bit. Wouldn't that be kind of funny? You'd probably get quite a lot of TikTok views. I don't know what the metric is they like. but I quite like giving out the mulch because that's something they could do tomorrow. Rosie get a jam jar and just get some mulch right out, put in the jam jar and ship it to her friends. It's very, it's a very like easy. It's very. It's very clear what their first step, the first small step they could take to make that a reality would be. but does that, that helps with the, with the forklift in kind of a. In a sense. But we are moving them away from selling toilet paper.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

But you know, there's this idea of you could reconfigure your factory to not need the forklift is. That's quite smart. That's quite. It's actually genuinely interesting and it's baked in reality. Right. Because people do that.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

You know, I can't choose a winner. My heart is so attached to the mulch idea. The pulpit yourself at home kit. I guess Wolsey can decide. Yeah, yeah. She can let us know which one she's going to take to the CEO.

Alex:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Rosie for sending this question in. Really appreciate it. also thanks for the photo that you sent us of the giant roll. We'll stick that in the show notes. it's been great. I've really enjoyed this episode. It's been an upside down episode. It started completely unhinged and ended while also kind of completely unhinged.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

But yeah, it was good and really enjoyable. Very much so, I forgot to ask you earlier. What's the name of the sponsor this week? Andrew? Did they send a company name in?

Andrew:

Yeah, they did. It's a bit strange, but their website actually has a very strong matrix theme. Yeah. And very futuristic. They're called the Toilet Hackers.

Alex:

Okay. Yeah, sounds good.

Andrew:

Alex, if someone like that episode, or at least found it bearable, how could they. How could they show their gratitude?

Alex:

Like the episode. Yes, like it. Do whatever it takes to like that episode. Stick a star on it, give it a tick, listen to it again. Yeah, whatever it takes to make your podcast app think that we are funny.

Andrew:

I. I think if you got this far, you either really freaking hate us or you thought at least bearable. So I think just give it a five star, regardless.

Alex:

Give it a five star. leave us an actual written review.

Andrew:

Yeah.

Alex:

That is the highest possible accolade. Words are so good. for our, rankings, we rely entirely on you, our beautiful listeners. So please do us a solid. Also, just tell your friends, tell your family, tell your toilet paper dealer all about this podcast. And if you are a brand that you would like some advice from us, drop us a line. We really want to hear from you.

Andrew:

We would love that. We would love that.

Alex:

Once again, thanks to Rich Endersby Marsh for the use of our theme song. It doesn't have a name.

Andrew:

Doesn't. It's just untitled theme song at the moment. You only need to ask them.

Alex:

Yeah.

Andrew:

Alex, do you have one final business idea?

Alex:

Yes, Andrew. I do. What about a tree surgery company that will come to your house and cut down a tree in your garden, guaranteeing that it will hit your car so that you can get in the local paper?

Andrew:

Amazing.

Alex:

Keep your brain on the outside.

Andrew:

Keep your brain on the outside.

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