In his first three months as CEO of TemperPack, Peter Wells has helped carve out a new vision for the Richmond company’s future, a significant task given the $140 million in funding the company raised last year and is now using to spread into new markets.
Since starting in July, Wells worked with a group of external consultants to create a strategy that will guide the sustainable packaging company for the next 18 months, he said. He also collaborated closely with Bob Beckler, TemperPack’s former chairman who was serving as an interim CEO for the past year.
“It's not that often that you start a job and you get a two-month overlap or transition and this three-month strategic deep dive,” said Wells, who previously served as CEO of grid technology firm Smart Wires Inc. and an onshore wind branch at General Electric Co.
Until now, TemperPack has focused primarily on its flagship product ClimaCell, a packaging material used to insulate food and beverages. Its new strategy under Wells comes amid the launch of two new product lines bolstered by the funding from its latest round in March 2022, which was one of the largest funding rounds in the Richmond area in years.
Some of the money from that round was used to acquire KTM Industries Inc., a Michigan-based company specializing in a biodegradable packaging material called Green Cell Foam. Although it has a lot of similarities to ClimaCell, Wells said he wants to create a distinct market the new product.
“We have a bit more work, I would say, to finalize exactly how we think those [products] will differentiate, but there are some very clear differences and we just want to really exaggerate those,” he said.
It’s a similar strategy for WaveKraft, a new product which TemperPack created and debuted in January. The paper-based packaging is made on a machine that is 99% smaller than traditional packaging-manufacturing machines, so customers can produce it on-site rather than shipping and storing large amounts of packing.
Like with KTM, Wells said he’s looking to carve out a unique market for WaveKraft. Both products are thicker than ClimaCell and could double as protective packaging, as well as insulative packaging, he said.
Protective packaging is “a massive market,” Wells said, “but it’s well-served, even from a sustainability standpoint.” During an expo of WaveKraft in Las Vegas this year, roughly 80% of inquiries were about protective packaging applications for the product, he added.
Moving beyond insulation packaging could help TemperPack with another aspect of its new strategy: to become less seasonal. The company sees significantly higher demand in the summer when more insulation is needed to keep products cool, and Wells is hoping to address the dip TemperPack experiences in the winter. In addition to exploring protective packaging, TemperPack is also working on a thinner, lighter and less expensive product that might be more popular during the colder months.
Wells also wants to see the company grow customer bases beyond food and beverage companies, historically ClimaCell’s primary consumers. Life sciences materials, many of which have to stay at a certain temperature during shipping, are a major area of potential growth, he said.
Beyond building its new product lines, its life sciences market and its wintertime demand, Wells is looking at an even longer-term strategy.
Wells doesn’t foresee the need for more private funding rounds in the near future and he said it had been “a strong year,” though he declined to disclose annual revenue. TemperPack was nearing $100 million in revenue in 2021, it told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“Not in the next 18 months, but beyond that, we recognize of course the markets are international,” he said, adding that both WaveCraft and Green Cell Foam could work well outside the U.S. because they have lighter production footprints. “We've got our eyes set on international markets in time.”
