We sat down with Rudy Patel, Chief Marketing Officer of beyondGREEN, a Walmart supplier and maker of certified compostable products about his experience using the Bridge platform.
Tell us about your business – what do you do?
beyondGREEN is a brand and a manufacturer focused on producing sustainable products in efforts to aid in the reduction of traditional petroleum-based, single-use plastics. We provide compostable extrusion blown film, blown film conversion, and injection molding manufacturing services to all our customers to assist them in reaching their sustainability goals! A great example of what we can produce through our injection molding process is the Great Value Compostable Cutlery! Our products are available in Walmart's across the country and at a price competitive to its plastic alternatives.
Tell us about your Walmart partnership.
Currently we supply certified compostable cutlery to Walmart, but with the support Walmart has provided us and with their belief in beyondGREEN, we hope to one day provide Walmart with many other compostable products, such products that would normally be single-use plastic, like bags, cups, straws and much more.
Tell us about how you needed access to capital and your specific needs.
To support our growth with Walmart, we needed to expand our facility so we could keep up with the demand. We recently built a large facility in Texas but needed capital to buy equipment to keep up with our growing Walmart relationship. It was a great problem to have but we needed financing to buy the equipment we needed
How did you hear about Bridge?
The Walmart team is absolutely great, like I mentioned earlier, the amount of support they show their suppliers is just amazing. When our other capital sources started to dry out, we reached out to our team at Walmart and explained to them our struggle. They listened to it with heart and next thing I know, calls were setup with Walmart team and options were provided. From there, we met our awesome team at Bridge!
How long did it take you to submit a request on Bridge?
It was quick, roughly 15 – 20 minutes.
How long before someone connected with you on a loan need?
We were contacted by the Bridge team immediately, they walked us through the process, asked us questions about the business and told us about the lenders available on the platform.
How long before you had options from lenders and were talking to lenders about your needs.
It was less than a week.
How many lenders did you connect with through Bridge?
The Bridge team connected us with four lenders to speak through various different products and options. They also joined calls with lenders to help support our story and worked with us to highlight things that lenders typically look for.
Did you get what you are looking for?
Yes, we had a few options and selected a financing solution which can help us buy the equipment we need.
Did this process help you to fulfil your Walmart order?
The equipment we purchase using this facility will directly contribute towards our Walmart orders.
