Vik and Anaita Sarkar, the husband and wife duo co-founders of Hero Packaging have won this year’s Australia Post Online Retail Industry Awards (ORIAS).
ORIAS is an industry event that “celebrates all that is truly good and inspiring among the top performers in Australian e-commerce.”
The judging panel observed that their decision was based on “how well the nominee demonstrated the implementation of B2C e-commerce principles and in particular the success in growing their B2B business via online/e-commerce channels.”
Vik and Anaita are passionate and “committed to removing plastic from packaging and shipping in Australia and the world.” Their website notes:
“To date, we have saved over 16,000,000 plastic mailers from entering the planet. On a daily basis, we send over 4,000 HEROPACKs around the world, and it is increasing rapidly!”
Hero was created after Vik and Anaita realised that their first e-commerce retail business was using way too much plastic in packaging products.
“We started to feel incredibly horrified at the amount of waste we were creating (and we were just one business!). The real cherry on top of the plastic pie was when our 2 girls were in our office during school holidays and were sitting amongst a pile of plastic, playing with the bubble wrap. We knew there had to be something better.”
The couple started doing some research on ways to minimise plastic usage. However, they were unable to find cost- and eco-friendly alternatives to plastic mailers. They note:
“From that moment, we were on a mission to create that solution. And after testing a bazillion different materials, we found a material that was compostable, but also water proof, super durable and acted like plastic in the shipping process, but would break down in a compostable environment.”
On winning this award, the couple said in a LinkedIn post that they “are incredibly honoured to have won.” They added:
“We didn’t expect it because we were up against some incredible finalists.”
Thanking the team behind their businesses success, Anaita said:
“What a lot of people don’t know is how much this means. I have looked up to the likes of Jane Lu Julie Mathers Mark Baartse for so long and dreamt of starting a business I’m proud of. I’ve been consuming and implementing e-comm skills and testing and failing and re-testing strategies for a long time so to hear our name being called out was a moment I’ll never forget.”
Hero Packaging has a Head Office in Sydney and distribution warehouses all over Australia. The couple are also planning to expand in to the US and Canadian market.
