How we found the perfect zip: A tale of sustainability and the small business

Our first stock partial frame bags are launching in less than a week! Despite having the pattern down ages ago (like, AGES), it’s taken us a very long time to get this bag to production. Why? Well, a few reasons actually, but the thing that slowed us down the most, and what I want to talk to you about today, was finding our zip.

But, aren’t zips, everywhere? What on earth could take so long?

The answer to this is twofold. The first; we really wanted the perfect big toothed zip for our frame bag, and it would require an amount of sampling to find the right one. The second; the perfect zip not only performed well, but it had to be made in Europe or the UK and had to be recycled or at least partially recycled.

We really do want to make as smaller impact on our planet as possible. But here’s the catch; we make products, not just any products either, outdoor products. The materials that are the best performing, aren’t the kindest to the environment. That’s not to say that friendlier materials don’t exist, they do! And they’re just getting better! But here’s the other catch; as a small company, we are often priced out of making the best decision for the planet, as the minimum quantities to buy these materials are too high for us. So, what did we do? We started our business, with the fabrics and materials that were readily available to us, and the hope of, one day, being big enough to be able to make all the best, eco conscience decisions for Earth and for our business.

The good news is, we’re getting there! Right now, 90% of our fabrics are made in Europe or the USA, we have one core fabric that is fully recycled, and last year we were able to move two more of our core fabrics to a cordura that was custom dyed for us without a fluorocarbon coating! More on all of this to come, promise. We’re quite a way off where we would like to be, but we’re still only little. We’re doing the best we can, with the resources we have, and we’re getting there one step at a time.

Our current zip supplier is based in Japan, with their manufacturing done between China and Turkey. We knew we could find a zip closer to home, we knew we could find the perfect big toothed zip that aligned with our values

After months of emails and many zip samples, we finally found the zip for our frame bag. It’s lovely big teeth are recycled, it’s matte and has a satisfying zrrrommmp. The Factory is in Italy and the company is called LAMPO; all the packaging they use is recycled and recyclable, they’ve been Oeko-Tex certified for over 10 years, they’ve signed up to Greenpeace’s DETOX initiative, and their factory is powered entirely by its own solar panels! You can read more about LAMPO’s sustainability credentials here.

It doesn’t stop there either, while we were on the hunt for a big toothed zip, we were sure to sample their other zips too, and were just as impressed. Once we use up our current stock of coil zip, we’ll move all our zips to made in Italy LAMPO zips.

The minimum order quantity is well over what we could have ordered at the beginning of our journey into bag making, but something we are able to meet now. We couldn’t be more thrilled.

We really love this zip; we love the way it looks, how it performs and where it comes from. We also love what it represents for our little company; we’re at a place where we have some more resources to make better decisions for our planet.

However small those decisions might be now, we know we’ll get there eventually, one zip at a time.