DOEN Participaties invests in pioneers who follow an entrepreneurial approach to create a better world. This is the story of Jochem Hes and Sjoerd Trompetter, the founders of Naïf. Naïf is a natural, completely vegan and ocean-friendly care brand from the Netherlands offering products for babies, children and women. Naïf’s products consist of ingredients that are good for people and planet, supplied in sustainable packaging.
A natural product is born
The idea for Naïf was born in 2013, together with the birth of their children. New fathers Jochem and Sjoerd discovered that most baby care products contain harmful ingredients. Jochem: ‘‘When you become a father, your life comes to a standstill. Suddenly, you’re preoccupied with other things. For instance, you find out that almost all baby products are based on petroleum, with all kinds of unnecessary chemical additives. You don’t want to put that on your child, do you? Sjoerd and I came up with an alternative using only natural ingredients such as linseed oil, avocado oil and tomato extract. Good, sustainably packaged products for every skin type that are good for people and planet.”
Circular scrub
“The world of personal care products is still very traditional,” says Jochem. “Yet everything seems to be changing. We see ourselves as pioneers in this development. Take our Circular Face Scrub for women, for example. Amsterdam water company Waternet was looking for someone to reuse grains of limestone from Amsterdam’s drinking water. We have used these grains in our face scrub. After use, the limestone grains are returned to the water. Waternet then filters them out and supplies them to us as an ingredient. It’s the world’s first circular cosmetic product, and we’re extremely proud of it!’’
Making packaging more sustainable
Not only the product, but also the packaging is sustainable. For example, the tubes are made from a plastic substitute based on sugar-cane. Naïf wants to introduce more sustainable packaging throughout the entire product line in the coming years. That is also one of the milestones agreed with DOEN. Jochem: ‘‘Most investors only look at the financial picture. DOEN Participaties focuses on the sustainability aspect. Thanks to their investment and with the help of their knowledge and expertise, we want to implement sustainability throughout the chain. From ingredients to packaging and transport.”
Future
Jochem sees a bright future. “If it were up to us, in five years’ time all our packaging would be 100% sustainable, we would be ten times bigger, we would have expanded our product range to include an adult sunscreen and we would also be on the shelves in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy. Our mission is and remains that consumers should be able to walk into any store with a ‘naive’ attitue and picking up natural products from the shelf without doubts or false promises.”
