Product, Service & Design Innovation
Savvy, Circularity Driving Pangaia’s Continued Expansion Into Conscious Consumer Market

It’s been a busy year for direct-to-consumer textile innovator Pangaia: 2021 saw the release of its PLNT FIBER™ and FRUT FIBER™ blends — fleece-like fabrics derived from plant and agricultural waste — which have the look and feel of cotton, without the cotton; a partnership with Kintra Fibers, to help scale industry access to Kintra’s compostable, synthetic fabric blends; and a partnership with connected products innovator EON to create ‘digital passports’ for its products to enable greater transparency, traceability and circularity in the industry and inspire responsible consumer choices.

In the past month, the UK-based materials-science company — whose mission is to deliver scalable alternatives to overproduced materials (such as cotton — stay tuned for another announcement on that front in the coming weeks) and become “Earth positive” by 2023 — has continued its momentum with new collaborations and its expansion from an apparel brand to a lifestyle brand.

Pangaia, RDD utilize textile waste for new collection

Image credit: Pangaia

Earlier this month, Pangaia announced a partnership with RDD (Research, Design Development) — the research arm of Portuguese textile group, Valérius.

Pangaia provides a platform for startups to test and commercialize their products before providing access to like-minded brands through its B2B business, Pangaia Science. After years of R&D together, Pangaia and RDD will continue to create a business model that springboards new technologies and drives apparel innovations on a global scale — with a goal of open-sourcing them for greater positive impact from the industry at large.

"RDD provides a bridge to commercialization for groundbreaking technologies to reach fashion brands,” says Dr. Amanda Parkes, Pangaia’s Chief Innovation Officer. “This new venture with RDD will allow Pangaia to bring material science technologies to market sooner and expand Pangaia’s vision to show others a way forward so that innovation can become more widespread.”

The latest Pangaia-RDD collaboration is The Reclaim Capsule — which features sweatshirts and sweatpants made from textile waste, giving unused material a second life. Production offcuts from Pangaia tracksuits are mechanically recycled and spun with organic cotton to create a new yarn; the resulting garments have unique colors from the blend of reused fabrics. Pangaia is now able to utilize its own waste stream, divert textile waste from landfills, and work toward closing the loop in circularity.

RDD joins Pangaia as a long-term innovation partner in the textile value chain, with the vision to bring new materials and science to the forefront of the fashion and textile industries. More new technologies currently in co-development are set to debut throughout 2022.

“We are proud to deepen our relationship with Pangaia and continue on our shared mission to create better textiles for the planet,” says RDD CEO Elsa Parente. “Together, we are creating a new formula for the fashion industry, one that prioritizes innovation and collaboration and offers partners a combined team of experts with scientific and technical knowledge.”

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Pangaia expands on ‘earth positive’ mission with launch of Pangaia Health

Image credit: Pangaia

This week, Pangaia launched Pangaia Health — expanding its brand portfolio to include a new lifestyle division and its first product category, Pangaia® Superfoods™.

The first product in the portfolio is the Pangaia® Super Super Bar™ — which combines food science, biotech, nature and functional nutrition into convenient, carbon-neutral and highly delicious snacks. Shepherding Pangaia into this new category of CPG is industry veteran Ira Laufer, who has been building this new division for Pangaia since 2021.

“Pangaia is thrilled to expand into the category of superfoods and continue its mission of building a healthy planet,” Laufer said. “We are driven by a vision of ‘hi-tech naturalism’ across our products; we look to bring the brilliance of nature complimented with today’s food science to create solutions that promote health — for us and our planet. As Pangaia launches into this new category, we are focused on eliminating many of the most damaging aspects of the food industry to help our community harness the abundance of nature and convert it into tangible and effective wellness solutions.”

The first bar out of the gate — the Prickly Pear + Goji Berry Super Super Bar — is a plant-based superfood bar made with sweet prickly pear, goji berries, sprouted red quinoa and coconut; as well as ingredients such as Incredo® sugar — which increases the concentration of natural cane sugar at our taste receptors, enabling formulation with 50 percent less sugar without sacrificing sweetness or taste; and Meltec® fiber — a proprietary, syrup-like vegetable fiber mixture that is sugar-free and utilizes partially upcycled ingredients from corn and legumes. The 50g bar is high-fiber, gluten-free and nutrient dense.

In line with Pangaia’s impact mission, Pangaia Superfoods aims to address these three pillars:

• Carbon neutral: Super Super Bars are certified carbon neutral through investments in clean energy projects such as wind, solar and biomass energy to offset carbon emissions.

• Supporting 1 trillion bees: Every box purchased will plant 10 square feet of flowers — saving bees and keeping the world’s food supply chain intact by supporting the ‘Bee the Change’ fund, which aids in bumblebee reintroduction projects, pollinator survival, biodiversity, sustainable farming practices and ecosystem restoration.

• Minimal packaging: The Super Super Bar wrapper will decompose in home or industrial compost, and the box is recyclable.