Sole of the Matter: It’s All Cork

“Do you know, over 100 million insoles are thrown away every year generating waste as big as the landmass of New Zealand. Every year. And so, I thought, this has to change,” says the 32-year-old, who did his MBA from SDA Bocconi in Milan.

Once the idea was on the anvil, he began his research to build a business case to see if it would hold. Thereafter, he met potential suppliers of cork in Portugal. This was October 2021. “Cork was the material that piqued my interest.” Cork is a natural product, is extremely comfortable and soft, has moisture-wicking properties, antibacterial, shock-resistant, light as a feather and thermal regulating — all qualities that “I thought would provide maximum comfort with the option to keep things natural and hopefully fully recyclable."

What’s important to note is that the entire cork production process is actually CO2 negative. By stripping the cork bark from the cork oak tree, it helps the tree to regenerate itself and in the process absorb more CO2 out of the atmosphere. Cork oak forests are part of the lungs of the earth, an ecosystem endemic to the Mediterranean basin. Every nine years this tradition of stripping the bark by hand takes place; it involves many local families that live off these cork oak forests. “All our cork is processed at Cortiçeira Amorim, the largest cork producer in the world, near Porto in Portugal, from where it is then shipped over land to our insole manufacturing plant. We are working together with multi-generational craftsmen who are industry experts at designing top quality shoe insoles for generations.”

But how did David discover Amorim? “As I was doing my preliminary research, one country came up for both — expertise in the footwear industry as well as the production of cork. Portugal. I knew Amorim was a leading supplier; but there was more to it. Beyond the production capacity and professionalism, Corticeira Amorim is a leader in sustainability. From the moment I met the team there I knew I wanted to work with them. Our values and ways of thinking were perfectly aligned. They welcomed me and spent the whole day with me, showing me around and teaching me everything about the magic of cork”.

Soon design prototypes began, moving from Portugal to Greece, and within four months the final version came in. This was January last year and in February “we did a photo and video shoot for our crowdfunding campaign and website. By the end of May we had raised €13K from 290 backers and the idea became a reality. We wanted to test the market demand, understand our customer and fail fast if we had to, in order to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better product based on customer feedback. This is where we are at right now. The prototypes for our second edition came in last month and we are planning another campaign around April with newer, lighter and even better Primal soles, called Primal Clouds.”

Even as the company “actively searches for a seed investment round”, the core message it sends out is that it has positioned itself for this growing wave of focus on three key macroeconomic developments:

• Increased awareness in the importance on health and movement.
• Increased awareness in the importance of footwear and its relation to pain prevention
• Increased awareness in the importance on sustainability

Bootstrapped, the project began with David’s savings, and money raised from friends and family. “We are now looking for seed money. So to all (angel) investors out there who want to leave a positive mark in this lifetime while providing comfort to thousands and reducing non-recyclable landfill by 1 million pairs of Primal Soles: here we are.”

The insoles are designed, made and boxed before being shipped over land to a smart warehouse, Huboo, in the Netherlands. Each product is less than 3cm in height and 250g in weight, enabling Primal to send packages to customers via regular mail, further limiting CO2 emissions.

Like so many other products, the Primal products are also shipped. However, where David claims to differ are the following key three points:

•  Primal Soles are light and small, so much so that our packages can be sent as regular mail. No box-in-box, like the major ecommerce brands. Lightweight, small packages that take minimal CO2 to be delivered.
• All CO2 that is produced by delivering our products is offset by Shopify Planet, of which Primal is a member. Therefore, even though Primal Soles must inevitably be shipped to  customers — it’s central to business — they do it in a manner that it has the least possible amount of negative impact on the planet.
• As mentioned earlier, the raw material used is CO2 negative in its production process. What’s more is that Primal Soles reuses the material by actively taking back used insoles and reintroducing them into the production cycle so that they don’t end up in landfill wastes. This way it creates a completely circular ecosystem that benefits both the customer as much as the planet from where the raw material is sourced from.

“We are operating on a very lean business model”, informs David, “which allows us to be agile and respond to consumer demand and feedback as fast as possible. We are able to scale our production as needed to satisfy consumer demand while minimising waste”.

Primal Soles, asserts he, is at the epicentre of where “we are headed as a species. We will be walking more, we will want to prevent walking-related pain more, but at the same time we will want to be more conscious about the products that we consume. Therefore, Primal Soles is all about maximum comfort combined with minimal footprint. One step at a time”.

Claiming to be the planet’s first 100% recyclable, circular and sustainable shoe insole, the vision at Primal Soles is to set an example for consumers and producers to take responsibility for the entire product life cycle. To do better and to be better. For now, and for generations to come. 

Its mission is to reduce the hundreds of millions of non-recyclable, synthetic shoe insoles that fill landfills by at least one million fully recyclable alternatives within 5 years. Insoles is a growing market segment, and Primal Soles can help a lot of people walk each step of their lives with maximum comfort and minimal footprint.

“We also encourage customers to send back their used product at the end of its life cycle, so that we can grind it up and turn it back into new insoles,” he says.