What Award Winning Product Sustainability Looks Like
Award Recognition
I was recently overjoyed to find out Stay tray was awarded Bronze for Best Sustainable Product in the 2021 Ausmumpreneur Awards.
Ausmumpreneur is Australia’s number 1 online community for mums in business. They support, elevate, celebrate, represent and inspire thousands of women who have created their own businesses. Amazing women working around their important family lives’.
Started by Peace Mitchell and Katy Garner, Ausmumpreneur believes that to change the world we simply need to begin by helping women. Investing in women has the potential to improve the outcomes for education, mental health, physical health and social wellbeing.
I’ve loved being involved in the Ausmumpreneur Awards. I feel so blessed to have won an award. There are so many amazing women out there with such fabulous businesses. I just want to share their stories.
Women looking After Mother Earth
Vanessa Layton’s, Hello Charlie, won Silver in the Sustainable Product Awards for her natural baby, beauty, and home products.
Vanessa loves to help customers transition their family to more sustainable living, and to make ethical choices based on personal values. She started Hello Charlie in 2004 because it was difficult to find products she was willing to use herself. Mainstream products were full of ingredients she didn’t like and were shipped with excess packaging. They were also sold by companies she didn’t want to support.
Vanessa wanted it to be easy to buy fully researched, safe products that are better for people and the planet. There’s a lot more choice when it comes to sustainable products these days. However, with choice comes confusion. So many products claim to be better for the environment. That’s why Hello Charlie is so careful about the products they stock.
Hello Charlie also puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to being a truly sustainable company. They run on 100% green power, offset their emissions and are working towards becoming a B Corporation.
Emma Cook won Gold in the Sustainable Product Award for her Australian Natural Soap Company. Emma, a journalist, and her husband, Anthony a Doctor, started making soap in their kitchen after they grew tired of seeing nasty sulfates, parabens, detergents, and artificial fragrances in store bought soap. Friends and family eventually cottoned on to their new hobby and fell in love with the all-natural, vegan, palm oil free, sulfate free, paraben free, detergent free creations. Their soaps eventually outgrew their kitchen table, opening their first shop at South Melbourne market in 2013.
Today, their soaps can be found in hundreds of stores in Australia and across the world. But they are still all handmade in Melbourne. At the Australian Natural Soap Company, they believe the environment knows best when it comes to nourishing and sustaining healthy beautiful skin. They only use the highest quality plant oils to create their soaps and skincare range for all skin types.
Solving Life’s Problems
Stay tray was also a finalist in the Sustainability and Product Innovation Categories. Carla Schwef from Designer Bums won Gold in the Sustainability Category.
Proudly Australian owned and operated, Designer Bums is the original home of eco-friendly cloth nappies. They have been nurturing little humans and the environments for close to a decade. Beginning in 2010, their cloth nappies were originally hand-sewn in Melbourne. As demand for their eco-friendly nappies grew, their products are now mindfully manufactured offshore in a small family-owned factory with premium quality materials sourced both locally & overseas. Their eco-nappy prints are limited-edition and exclusively designed by talented artists.
Not willing to compromise on convenience or style, Designer Bums cloth nappies showcase the unique designs of local and overseas artists and designers. They exclusively commission genuine and limited-edition prints so their loyal customers can shop new designs every season.
Micheline Andrews’ Take A Broth Tasmania won Silver in the Sustainability Category. Take a Broth Tasmania is a handmade, small batch range of premium quality artisan bone broth products.
Micheline is a passionate bone broth advocate and producer. She was the first person in the world to make dehydrated bone broth powder and has expanded the range to include innovative bone broth products, many of which continue to be world firsts!
Kerry Chadwick’s shared the Bronze Award. Bubba Organics proudly provides families with honest to goodness Australian made natural skin care products. Established in 2013, Bubba Organics has quickly grown to become one of Australia’s leading premium baby brands and a respected name in natural skin care.
Their gorgeous products first arrived on Australian shelves in 2016. Despite a crowded baby skin care market, parents quickly fell in love with their two signature ranges, divinely calming Lavender & Chamomile, and deeply soothing Australian Goats Milk. Since then, they have created limited edition products for the Victorian Government Baby Bundle scheme, Disney, and May Gibbs.
From day one, Bubba Organics has been committed to providing safe, gentle and 100% natural skin care solutions for families.
Jennie McAlpine’s BabyDink also shared the Bronze Award. BabyDink is the first all-in-one Newborn Carrier. Jennie’s design is all about simplicity and style. Special care was taken in the design to provide soft, flexible support for the baby’s head, leaving the wearer hands free. After extensive market research, much trial and error, periods of self-doubt and Jennie, second guessing herself, BabyDink is now ready for the world.
Jo Gazzi’s fabulous Duopillow won Gold in the Product Innovation Category.
Before Jo had kids, she never thought she’d be a parent that allowed her kids into her bed at night. Fast-forward 10 years and three kids later. Jo's sleeping routines didn’t work as planned. It’s always so much easier when you are parenting those hypothetical children. When it came to parenting and sleep routines, Jo wanted to do the right thing. Kids in their own beds, self-settling and staying asleep for a solid 12 hours. A restful sleep for everyone, ready to embrace the new day.
At Jo’s house, this wasn’t the case. Despite endless hours of encouragement, big kid beds, patting mattresses, dropping day naps, night lights, cuddly toys and many tears, they would have trouble sleeping. Every night Jo would have midnight visits from her kids.
Restless arms and legs and sleeping in awkward and uncomfortable positions to accommodate little people is not fun.
The upside of bed sharing was the kids slept. You need to do whatever it takes to survive sleep deprivation. The downside, it wasn’t comfortable. The lack of quality sleep combined with a sore neck wasn’t ideal. Jo searched high and low for a co sleep pillow that was designed to support families that co-slept. She quickly realised there wasn’t anything easily available and set about creating the solution herself.
It’s all Worth It
It’s so heart-warming to receive an award for Stay tray. Especially amongst such amazing competition. Its so great to see so many fabulous women designing such amazing and innovative products. It’s so special to receive an award from people I have never met before. Amazing to receive recognition for my little reusable cup holder. It really makes my day. It feels like all the hard work I have put in over the past three years is starting to pay off. So many late nights and weekends, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
