Founder’s Story
In the fall of 2014, Curt Campbell discovered a growing interest in alternatives to agricultural plastic used in commercial vegetable farming. With Curt’s background in the paper industry he asked himself, why couldn’t paper be used rather than plastic?
With that idea in mind, the next step was to develop an alternative paper mulch solution. For the product to meet the needs and expectations of our growers, it was imperative that it withstood the elements in the field, performed exceptional weed suppression, retained moisture, and incorporated heat absorption.
In the spring of 2016, our flagship PaperMulch product was introduced to commercial growers in Western North Carolina and they placed it on rows of bush beans. Our PaperMulch performed beyond their expectations and was soon discovered by Craig Mauney from NC State Horticulture Research. Craig was immediately intrigued with high hopes that our PaperMulch could keep thousands of pounds of plastic mulch from going to landfill.
“We used PaperMulch in our field of strawberries and it worked as good as plastic. I was relieved to keep more plastic waste from going to landfills."
— Jason Davis (Owner, North River Farms)
Under Craig’s supervision and three years of testing out in the field, we have developed a product that is ready to be used as a plastic mulch alternative. Growers who have used our product have reported that PaperMulch actually performs better than plastic in two areas: fighting back nutsedge and keeping plants healthy late in the season.
"In the spring of 2016, we did the first trial using this product. It surpassed our expectations right out of the gate and performed well until the end of the growing season when it started to decompose.”
— Kirby Johnson (Owner, Flavor 1st)
Thank you for considering our product. Together we can make a difference in reducing thousands of pounds of plastic going to the landfill each year.