Terravive has been on a mission for years to reduce the food industry’s reliance on plastic, and its efforts are having noticeable effects.
The Richmond-based business, founded in 2015 by Julianna Keeling, creates over 100 types of single-use commercial food service products made with biodegradable materials. Recently, Terravive has been working on bags and film (similar to plastic wrap) for food packaging and pallet wrapping.
“We were founded with the mission to find a better alternative to single-use plastic and foam,” Keeling says. “[We] utilize plant-based materials that break down and aren’t going to pollute the environment.”
Apart from Terravive’s environmental priorities, one of its long-standing initiatives has been to offer 100% made-in-America products. The company uses sustainable domestic manufacturing and supply chains — a decision increasingly working in the company’s favor amid a trade war.
“With what’s going on in the world, we have an incredible amount of interest in our products, [especially because of] tariffs we’re immune to,” co-owner and Navy veteran Joe Swider says. “We have secure supply chains [in the U.S.]. We don’t have to wait for products coming across the Pacific and [contribute to] pollution with shipping.”
Typically formed with petroleum- based materials, plastic has become a cost-effective solution for the food service industry, which often provides customers with foam containers and plastic straws, plates and takeaway bags. According to a 2021 report by the nonprofit Upstream, 1 trillion pieces of single-use food service waste are generated yearly in the U.S. alone. Plastic can eventually break into microplastics and leak chemicals, like BPA (bisphenol A, a notorious endocrine disruptor) into waterways and soil, leading to serious health concerns for both humans and wildlife.
A 2021 Virginia law enacted bans on expanded polystyrene food service containers for some food vendors to take effect on July 1, 2023, and for all vendors on July 1, 2025. In 2022, the blanket ban was extended to 2028, but the updated state budget sets the two start dates to July 1 this year and in 2026, respectively.
Terravive co-owners Joe Swider and Julianna Keeling
Terravive’s products are composed of various plant substances, like upcycled sugarcane for its brown products. “We take the excess fibrous crop and turn that into products and stuff that would have been burned and disregarded,” Keeling says. Corn-based materials are also used to make clear items like cutlery. While decomposition varies depending on the local climate, the products ordinarily disappear within a few weeks once disposed of.
Keeling, who went to Mills E. Godwin High School, was inspired to start Terravive when she began analyzing the enormous amount of garbage humans accumulate. After attending Washington and Lee University and spending time in San Francisco learning how to build a business, she returned to Richmond and participated in Lighthouse Network’s incubator program. There, she met Swider, who joined Terravive in 2019. Today, the woman-, minority- and veteran-owned business’s products can be found across the U.S. and four continents.
“For people who are trying to get plastic out of their supply chains or customers concerned about [eating off of] plastic and Styrofoam, it makes sense to [use Terravive products],” Keeling says. “We’re trying to be the most sustainable company we can be.”
