What’s in store in 2023 for our Australian Made toys and tableware?
2022 wasn’t our year. I say that for full transparency.
Since we launched in 2019, we have experienced significant growth and we’ve been floored (and so grateful) for the wonderful, positive feedback we receive for our Australian Made and eco-friendly toys and tableware.
We are a small, Australian business, run 100% by myself (Miranda!) and my husband James. We have worked tirelessly to launch something new each year:
What does it take to launch a new product?
It takes on average, 12 months to launch a new product. This is longer than you will see from other companies, but given we are working with recycled plastic (recycled milk bottles in our case), it takes a lot of additional design work and testing to make sure the recycled plastic will mould correctly.
So what happened in 2022?
We had two products we wanted to launch in 2022 – an awesome Australian Made beach toy, and one new product in our tableware range. We have been working on both these products since 2021. Unfortunately, we hit some significant hurdles with both.
The reality is, when you make recycled plastic products, it’s not an easy process. Recycled plastic doesn’t behave as well as new plastic, and unfortunately through our testing process, we realised that our original designs weren’t going to mould correctly. Which means we’ve had to make some design changes, adding a number of months on to the process.
We worked so hard with our teams to try and have them ready in time for Christmas, but combined with some capacity challenges for our manufacturing team, we simply couldn’t get them across the line.
What’s in store for 2023?
We are working hard to finalise both new products over the next few months, and we’re anticipating releasing them in March. Our new Australian made beach toy will each use almost 5 2 litre recycled Australian milk bottles, which we’re thrilled about, as we continue with our commitment to reducing Australia’s waste, and stopping our recycling ending up in landfill.
We hope you’ll stick with us on our journey this year!
Miranda
Since we launched in 2019, we have experienced significant growth and we’ve been floored (and so grateful) for the wonderful, positive feedback we receive for our Australian Made and eco-friendly toys and tableware.
We are a small, Australian business, run 100% by myself (Miranda!) and my husband James. We have worked tirelessly to launch something new each year:
- 2019 – we launched our flagship toys, The Reef Express Bath Toy Set and The Reef Rescue Crew
- 2020 – we brought you our super-cute Octo-buoy Stacking Cup Set
- 2021 – we introduced our awesome, durable kids bowls.
What does it take to launch a new product?
It takes on average, 12 months to launch a new product. This is longer than you will see from other companies, but given we are working with recycled plastic (recycled milk bottles in our case), it takes a lot of additional design work and testing to make sure the recycled plastic will mould correctly.
So what happened in 2022?
We had two products we wanted to launch in 2022 – an awesome Australian Made beach toy, and one new product in our tableware range. We have been working on both these products since 2021. Unfortunately, we hit some significant hurdles with both.
The reality is, when you make recycled plastic products, it’s not an easy process. Recycled plastic doesn’t behave as well as new plastic, and unfortunately through our testing process, we realised that our original designs weren’t going to mould correctly. Which means we’ve had to make some design changes, adding a number of months on to the process.
We worked so hard with our teams to try and have them ready in time for Christmas, but combined with some capacity challenges for our manufacturing team, we simply couldn’t get them across the line.
What’s in store for 2023?
We are working hard to finalise both new products over the next few months, and we’re anticipating releasing them in March. Our new Australian made beach toy will each use almost 5 2 litre recycled Australian milk bottles, which we’re thrilled about, as we continue with our commitment to reducing Australia’s waste, and stopping our recycling ending up in landfill.
We hope you’ll stick with us on our journey this year!
Miranda