![]() Many restaurants, especially small and independent ones, were going out of business. Covid was already rough for the restaurant business, and things had barely taken a turn for the better when the energy crisis hit. They had a good product and a great plan, and things were going smoothly - until they weren’t. That’s why I knew I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes, and also had a good starting point with Tuomas because we could do similar agreements,” Rosa says. “I’m so grateful that in Startup Experience, we were made to do these shareholders’ agreements on what happens if someone wants to proceed with the idea and the others don’t. Opack’s c oncept is based on QR codes and a subscription service. The core idea is similar to what Rosa and her team came up with, but with Tuomas, they managed to improve upon it in many ways. They aim to make returning the packages convenient and profitable for the end users (you and me) and risk-free for their customers (the restaurants) by taking care of collecting and washing the packages. Rosa and Tuomas don’t want to spill all their secrets but reveal that their concept is based on QR codes and a subscription service. They decided to still call their product Opack - at least for now. Covid had made takeaway and delivery food the norm, and there was certainly a demand for reusable packaging, but the existing solutions were rather traditional.īy utilizing their combined brainpower and building on the original idea, they devised a business model they believed would work. I’m so grateful that in Startup Experience, we were made to do shareholders’ agreements.Īs Rosa and Tuomas started investigating the field further, they realized there weren’t many genuinely innovative solutions. And rarely have I met someone with whom our ideas would be so well in sync, so it was easy to say yes,” he says. “I always want to have some interesting projects ongoing. For Tuomas, this was precisely the kind of challenge he had been looking for. “Tuomas seemed like a capable guy, so I thought, why not! My team had disbanded, and I couldn’t really think of anyone else I’d like to pursue the idea with,” Rosa says. Not much after, he got a message from her asking if he’d like to set up a circular economy startup with her. ![]() There, he met Rosa, who had recently moved to town. ![]() In 2021, he was working at FabLab in Oulu. Tuomas Hätälä is an electrical and automation engineering student who’s always liked to tinker with all kinds of projects in and outside his field. The other team members, however, had different plans - they wanted to focus on their studies instead of continuing with the idea. It was clear to Rosa that their idea had value and should become a real startup. Her team got valuable feedback over the course and pitched the idea under the name Opack at Matchbox 2021. This way, we’d produce less trash, and food vendors wouldn’t need to order new packages as often. Rosa-Maria Alaraasakka’s Startup Experience team had a great idea: they would make returning takeaway food packaging back to the vendor for reuse both easy and lucrative.
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