Bim Bam Boo, a St. Paul-based startup that makes bamboo toilet paper, has come up with a unique way to say goodbye to 2020: A #Flush2020-branded toilet paper set.
Bim Bam Boo announced Monday that it well sell the limited-edition toilet paper set on its website for, naturally, $20.20. The set includes six rolls themed around the year's horrors, including Covid-19, distance learning and racism.
CEO Zoë Levin, who calls herself as the "toilet paper queen," said the set was inspired by the Ecuadorian tradition of "Año Viejo," or burning the worst parts of the past 12 months in effigy. But in a year marked by an actual toilet paper shortage, #Flush2020 seems apt as well.
"Sometimes life is so bad you can't help but laugh at it, or make a joke. This truly has been a crappy year," Levin said.
But ironically, Bim Bam Boo has actually had a good year. The toilet paper shortage presented a growth opportunity for the company. It started the year with less than $1 million in annual revenue, but the firm now expects to close the year with sales above $5 million, Levin said. The company is totally self-funded.
The company has also expanded to selling in local Twin Cities stores like Kowalski's, and it launched in 500 Whole Foods locations across the country. It's currently in late-stage talks with a major national retailer, Levin said, though she declined to say who the retailer was.
In the first quarter of 2021, Bim Bam Boo plans to roll out a line of bamboo paper towels in Whole Foods. It will also start to offer bamboo facial tissue and other products that it won't talk about publicly yet.
Bim Bam Boo is currently part of Lunar Startups' third cohort. Lunar is a St. Paul-based startup accelerator that focuses on serving startups run by women, people of color and LGBTQI+ people. It's based out of the Osborn370 building in St. Paul and has eight employees.
Bamboo-based toilet paper is better for the environment because bamboo grows far quicker than trees and is therefore more sustainable. It's also softer, which allows Bim Bam Boo to make its toilet paper without chemicals. It's all in the service of what Levin calls "unselfish self-care," or things we can do for our own benefit that aren't wasteful or harmful to the environment.
"You can make decisions that are both kind to you and kind for the Earth," she said.
