For many new parents, the decision to use disposable nappies rather than cloth nappies comes down to convenience. Cloth nappies require washing which takes time – something parents often lack. Taranaki Mum Kendell Terrill wanted to make cloth nappies more appealing so has launched a cloth nappy laundry business, Baby Addictions, which does all the hard work.
The Taranaki-based service provides the cloth nappies for you to use then collects the dirty cloth nappies from parents and day-care centres. They wash, sanitise, and dry the cloth nappies, returning them fresh and clean to clients.
“I have a two-year-old daughter so completely understand that having a baby or toddler is a busy time and can be overwhelming! I created this service as I wanted to reduce the number of nappies going to landfill as well as making it easier for Mums to use cloth nappies which are friendlier for the environment and cheaper than disposable nappies,” says Baby Addictions founder, Kendell Terrill.
With a business idea but no business experience, Kendell enrolled in Venture Taranaki’s CO.STARTERS programme earlier this year so that she could learn how to run a business, make connections, and learn from other business founders.
“CO.STARTERS was great. It was helpful meeting others who were starting up, hearing what they had to say, comparing notes, and helping one another. One of my biggest questions was working out how to price a service or product so learning how to do all the break even and gross profit numbers definitely helped.”
Still in its preliminary stages, Baby Addictions is currently trialling its cloth nappy laundry service with a local Mum and Puddleducks day-care. Kendell is hoping to get more Taranaki day-cares onboard soon.
“I was horrified at the level of waste from nappies. It takes up to 650 years to break down one nappy. Each new-born baby uses approximately 12 nappies a day and the average day-care centre in Taranaki uses 550 nappies per week,” she says.
“Cloth nappies are often seen as difficult and time-consuming. I want to remove this stigma and make the transition from using disposable nappies to cloth nappies as easy as possible. Auckland Council has subsidies for cloth nappy trials in day-cares, so there is a real shift happening towards cloth nappies. I can only hope Taranaki Council does the same here to help reduce Taranaki’s waste” she adds.
Kendell’s business goal is to convert 50 per cent of Taranaki day-cares to use cloth nappies which would save hundreds of thousands of disposable nappies going to landfill every year.
She is in the process of getting a building built for the laundry service and has also been busy designing a cloth nappy prototype to sell, which is now available and being used in the laundry service.
If you need support to grow your business or business idea, applications are open now for Soda’s next CO.STARTERS programme which starts on 2 August 2021. Find out more.
