Cornish Surfers Will & Sam Boex Are Replacing Plastic Packaging With A Biodegradable Alternative

Back in 2018 Porthleven based surfers and designers Sam and Will Boex launched a brand new eco-surfboard packaging called Flexi-Hex.

“For the last 18 months we’ve been looking at how surfboards are packaged,” Sam told us immediately after the launch. “We’re aware that the industry is only going in one direction with regards to distribution, because there’s more and more boards being sold online and sold internationally.”

“Packaging boards is a problem,” he continued. “Because of the nature of a surfboard its a convex shape going in two directions, ranging from 4ft to 9ft in length so finding one solution to fit 95% of the board market was a challenge.”

The brothers set out to find an elegant solution that merged functionality with aesthetics and of course, eco-credentials. 

“The idea for  Flexi-hex stemmed from seeing how fruit was packed in a supermarket; looking at those foam meshes on mangos and the way they flex around the fruit,” said Sam.  

The mesh is made from recycled pulp and is itself complete recyclable and biodegradable, which is a far cry from the materials – like bubble wrap and polystyrene – which currently dominate the world of packaging and can take more than 500 years to break down. 

Since then, the business has taken off, with the Flexi-Hex finding use far beyond wrapping surfboards, protecting everything from laptops to bottles of bubbly. To date 154,000 sleeves have been sold across 19 countries, removing the equivalent of 389km of bubble wrap. 

Recently, the company has been inviting new investment, through a campaign created and run by WL Media. And after smashing their initial £300k target in just 24 hours, the stage looks set for the Boex brothers to remove a whole lot more plastic from the packaging process in the future.

“It’s impossible to say: ‘I’m going to save the world with one solution,’” Sam told us, back in 2018. “But if people start working on small steps in different areas, focusing on how to reduce waste and the environmental impact in their sector or their particular niche market, those dots can be joined together and then the whole culture at large can reduce its impact.”

You can find out all the details and pick up your slice of equity here.