Every year, an estimated 20 million plastic flower sleeves get sent to landfill in New Zealand.
Twenty-four-year-old Yasmin Wessels saw the problem first-hand and decided to tackle it head-on.
Having grown up helping in her parents' Te Kauwhata flower-growing business, she spent weekends and school holidays sleeving flowers. Later, while working at the Auckland Flower Auction, she was confronted by the scale of plastic waste flowing through the industry.
"Everything was wrapped in plastic. I thought, surely there's got to be a better way," says Yasmin.
"I couldn't sleep some nights thinking about it. I saw that nobody was doing anything and thought, well, why can't I try and make a change?"
Today, that change has become The Flower Loop – a circular system that creates flower sleeves for growers, collects them, recycles them, and remanufacture them into new sleeves for growers to use again.
"Our goal is to close the loop on plastic flower sleeves in the flower industry," says Yasmin.
The impact is already significant. The Flower Loop has recycled more than five tonnes of plastic and facilitated the return of more than 855,000 flower sleeves, keeping valuable material in circulation rather than becoming waste.
Turning that vision into a scalable business, however, required more than a good idea.
Like many early-stage founders, Yasmin was still working through questions around growth, branding and business sustainability.
Through Startup Aotearoa's free coaching programme, she worked with Soda Startup Coach Sue Loder to strengthen the foundations of the business and prepare for growth.
The support included business coaching, rebrand and positioning work, funding and financial readiness, introductions to accounting support, and connections with PR and communications expertise.
One of the most significant milestones was the evolution from Circular Plastics NZ to The Flower Loop – a brand that better captured both the problem being solved and the circular solution being created.
"Sue actually helped me with my rebrand quite a lot. Without her it would have been so much harder," says Yasmin.
Beyond practical advice, the coaching provided something equally important: an outside perspective.
"It's really nice to bounce ideas off someone who has so much more experience and has a different perspective on your business than you do," Yasmin says.
"Sometimes when you're super passionate about something you're almost emotionally connected to it, and you can be blind to something. It's really nice to have other people say, 'Have you thought about it like this?'"
The support helped turn an early-stage idea into a business with growing national momentum.
The Flower Loop has launched a new website, established a stronger brand identity, expanded its collection network, and developed a clearer roadmap for creating a national closed-loop system for flower sleeves.
Along the way, Yasmin has also gained access to opportunities that are helping accelerate her growth. A scholarship enabled her to travel to Malaysia and Vietnam, while securing He Kākano Seed Funding from The King's Trust Aotearoa New Zealand will allow The Flower Loop to purchase a baler and expand operations across Aotearoa.
Despite the achievements, Yasmin remains focused on the bigger picture.
"I'd love what we're doing to be the norm," she says.
Her vision is simple but ambitious: "When you walk into the supermarket and see the flower display, my goal is to see all of that plastic in our recycled sleeves."
It's an ambitious goal, but with more than 855,000 sleeves already returned and a growing nationwide network behind her, Yasmin is proving that a circular future for New Zealand's flower industry is well within reach.
Find out if your startup is eligible for free one-to-one coaching through Startup Aotearoa.