Small- and medium-sized bakeries, cafes, and restaurants are currently
enjoying a renaissance of sorts, thanks to a renewed enthusiasm
for locally made food and the immense marketing power of social
media platforms such as Instagram. But as important as branding is to
many of these businesses, many of them serve their coffees and food in generic white cups and plain brown boxes. That’s because the
packaging industry does not tend to provide custom designs in small
enough quantities for this market.

Georgette Packaging, a startup launching out of our Winter 2016 class, is filling in this gap, providing a platform that lets companies of any size easily and affordably create their own
custom to-go boxes and cups.

Georgette Packaging provides live pricing and online ordering capability for 8 box sizes and 4 cup
sizes, including over 660 customizing options. By batch manufacturing many small orders together, and shouldering the
cost of tooling, the company is able to offer exceptionally low prices.

The small- and medium-sized food service niche alone is a sizable market, worth some $1 billion annually. But for Georgette, this could be only the beginning: The overall packaging
industry currently makes up 1 percent of the United States’ GDP, and is estimated to be worth $186 billion in 2017, growing apace with rising global consumption. Georgette Packaging is one of the first startups to address this under-served market from a technology perspective, and has the potential to expand beyond bakeries and cafes in the months ahead.

Georgette
Packaging was founded by Sarah Landstreet, an entrepreneur who experienced the problem of finding custom packaging first-hand when she owned a bakery in Ireland. Georgette currently works with over 100 businesses across the US and Canada,
and is growing its revenue by 10% every week.