Pantry Files: Koala Eco Co-Founders, Jessica Bragdon & Paul Davidson
Eucalyptus, lemon myrtle, peppermint, Rosalina, tea tree, mandarin…the scents of Koala Eco invoke the Australian bush and are so quintessentially Australian. These essential oils not only smell incredible and feel familiar but also have powerful antibacterial, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties that Koala Eco has harnessed to create their range of natural, plant-based products. And importantly, the products work fantastically! Koala Eco embodies sustainability and the natural world and we simply can’t get enough this purpose-led brand.
In this edition of Pantry Files, we speak with Koala Eco Co-Founder, Jessica Bragdon, to hear about her and her husband Paul Davidson's journey establishing their incredible range of natural, plant-based products for the home and body. We chat about Koala Eco's approach to sustainability and their family’s favourite way to enjoy time in nature.
Can you tell us a little bit of the story behind Koala Eco? How it started?
My husband Paul and I started Koala Eco in Sydney in 2017, but actually the story behind our company began quite a while before that. I grew up in Boston and New Hampshire and was strongly influenced by my grandmother, who would take my sister Dee and me on long hikes through the forests around her New England home, pointing out the flora and fauna along the way. Paul grew up in country Western Australia. So when we got together, and especially when we started our family, it was our shared preference always to use natural remedies and solutions as part of our household routines and lifestyle. We looked for safe, non-toxic household cleaning products, but we couldn’t find what we wanted, so we decided to start a company to make plant-based products for the home and body, using beautiful aromatic essential oils from Australian native botanicals.
What do you love most, what are you most passionate about when running and growing your brand and business?
Paul and I quickly realised that, to us, Koala Eco had the potential to be much more than an ordinary cleaning products company. We wanted to bring more nature into people’s everyday lives, and to do that we needed to bring some of our own experiences into how we shaped and grew the Koala Eco brand. One of the most important of these experiences is simply that the more time we spend in nature, the better we feel. As I mentioned, our key ingredients are essential oils, which not only have incredible antiseptic and antibacterial attributes, but also wonderful healing and mood-enhancing properties. So sharing the benefits of the connection between nature, wellness, mental health and lifestyle (including how we choose to clean our homes) has become an overarching purpose for Koala Eco.
The business is all about the things we believe in, and would be practising anyway: care for the planet, healthy choices, getting out into nature. And I absolutely love the testing stage where we are working with the lab to formulate new products.
What has surprised you most about your journey since you launched?
I think we’d agree that the rapid take-up and enthusiasm for products with clean ingredients and essential oils has been really heartening, also a little surprising because perhaps we didn't anticipate it to be so quick. In addition to our online retail operations, our products are stocked in stores throughout Australia; we are also available in the USA, Hong Kong, Korea, Bahrain, Singapore and Taiwan. We manufacture locally in Australia for Australia and Asia, and we manufacture locally in the USA with Australian essential oils for the USA.
Can you tell us about Koala Eco’s sustainability journey?
On a practical level, none of our products contains anything harmful to people, pets or the planet. We’ve always used recycled packaging and made refill sizes available. We were overjoyed when we campaigned successfully in 2019 to move to 100% locally collected rPET bottles for our packaging, so Koala Eco does not use any new plastic for our bottles. We also provide concentrates, glass and refills.
On a more philosophical level, we’re really proud that Koala Eco was one of the first businesses to be invited to re-badge as a dot-eco company by the Vancouver-based dot-eco movement, launched by two former United Nations Environment Programme staffers.
In terms of how we champion circularity, I’d say it comes straight from who we are as people, what we aspire to do and be. We don’t want to use or do anything that harms our loved ones or the planet, and we want to be, and our products to be, transparent about this. We're making products that have been developed from nature for nature, and we think we’re offering people a really strong and affordable alternative to the usual choices.
Koala Eco offers people an educated choice that respects nature and uses its powerhouse remedies; and an emotional choice that can help us feel that, despite the negativity and struggle that threatens to overwhelm our planet and ourselves, we still can make a positive difference. And Koala Eco also offers an ethical choice or alternative, exposing all those chemical-laden, toxic, eco-destructive products for the compromise they are. The more people embrace these choices, the less harm we’re likely (as individuals) to do to our planet.
Koala Eco supports 1% for the Planet. Why did you choose this organisation to align with (and commit 1% of your revenue to)?
We were familiar with the work of environmentalist and philanthropist Yvon Chouinard. From the first day we launched we wanted Koala Eco to be part of his non-profit One Per Cent for the Planet. It’s an environmental group committed to protecting land, forests, rivers and oceans, and encourages sustainable methods of energy. We admire Chouinard’s vision that melds business with a bigger environmental picture. Like Yvon, I grew up in the northeast of the USA with a very New England upbringing. I like how he combines the authentic sensibility of the northeast and the innovation of California in his outlook.
We’re also proud sponsors of People and Parks #naturepact, which is a worldwide program that restores people's connection to nature through the benefits of ecopsychology and conservation. Paul and I would be donating to environmental causes whether or not we had a business, so it just makes perfect sense to carry through our personal values and make these automatic givebacks part of the Koala Eco ethos.
Do you have a favourite Koala Eco product or scent?
This is always a hard one, as I love them all. I keep coming back to our very first product, Natural Multipurpose Kitchen Cleaner with Lemon Myrtle and Mandarin. We worked so hard with our chemists and labs to make a real winner to launch our company, and it’s been one of our top sellers ever since.
Lemon Myrtle {Backhousia citriodora} has fresh, evergreen, lemony notes, and is really effective at deodorizing and removing bacteria while acting as a natural mood booster. Mandarin {Citrus reticulata} is nature’s perfect pick-me-up, its scent promoting happiness, contentment and calm. But it also has fabulous antibacterial, antimicrobial, antifungal, and antiviral properties as well, which when combined with other essential oils, make it a truly powerful cleaner. We wanted to start with a product that could do everything, and I find I use this everywhere: the fridge, bench tops, kids’ lunchboxes, wherever.
But I also have to mention scent. One of my absolute favourites is Rosalina {Melaleuca ericifolia}, which is also known as the Australian bush lavender. It has the most divine lavender notes, and it’s able to calm the nerves as well as energise and refresh, which is why we use it in a lot of Koala Eco body care products like our hand and body washes and body lotion as well as our new laundry delicate wash coming very soon.
What are you working on right now? What’s next for Koala Eco?
We’re thrilled to have launched our latest product, a Natural Dog Wash with Sweet Marjoram and Rosalina essential oil. Washing the dog will never be an ordeal again: as much for our furry friends as for us!
We're also developing products that work like bleach but don’t contain all the toxic ingredients of bleach and a natural dish powder for the dishwasher. So there are a few things being lab-tested (not on animals, I hasten to add) and refined for a future release; but only when they are absolutely perfect.
While natural cleaning and body products remain the core of our collection, we've been focusing on ideas that help people to connect with nature in other meaningful ways in the home. Products that support creating a restful environment in places like the bedroom. We’ve developed a Natural Pillow and Linen Spray from the essential oils of nature’s three best stress-relieving and anti-inflammatory botanicals: Eucalyptus, Peppermint, and the beautifully aromatic Australian bush lavender, Rosalina. We aspire to develop more products of this kind, to enhance healthy and pleasurable nature-based practices in people’s daily domestic lives.
Nature is a key thread in your products and philosophy. What is your favourite way to spend time in nature?
Yes. Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden; or a Life in the Woods got it absolutely right when he wrote ‘We need the tonic of wildness…[w]e can never have enough of nature.’ Of course, this is something that the First Nations peoples of the world have always lived and understood. Immersion in nature is a deeply spiritual, enriching and sustaining experience. And it’s a reciprocal thing: if we care for nature, nature cares for us.
For Paul’s favourite way to spend time in nature, I’d say definitely surfing. The ocean is just so important for all of us. On a recent holiday on the coast south of Sydney, Paul surfed with our sons, while I went for an early morning run on the beach. It was heaven.
Image: Koala Eco Co-Founders Paul and Jessica with their sons Emmerson and Arthur
Managing a (global!) business and raising two boys – when you do find time for yourself how do you spend it?
Well, I guess we try to get out into nature as much as possible as a family, because that time together is irreplaceable. If I get time to myself, it’s an early morning pilates class or beach workout. If that’s not possible, a few minutes to centre myself each day with a bit of deep breathing and meditation, and better still if I can find the nearest park and sit under a beautiful tree. Really good coffee is important too!
What is exciting or inspiring you right now?
I think our launch in North America: it’s a huge moment for us. My sister Dee is based in California, and is our Managing Director for our Stateside operations. Being twins, we are incredibly close, and there’s nothing better than having her in my daily work world as well as my personal world!
Who does the cooking in your house and what does your family eat on a typical weeknight?
Paul is a great cook, and often cooks on the weekends, but we make an effort to divide up the week. We try to eat vegetarian meals three nights a week.
If you had to pick three pantry staples that you can’t cook without, what would they be and why?
Olive oil, salt, vinegar. They truly are the foundations of so many wonderful dishes.
What is the most memorable meal you’ve had this past year?
A meal at Saint Peter on Sydney’s Oxford Street: a heavenly fish restaurant which sources sustainable seafood.
But maybe it’s the crab pasta we made with crabs the kids caught while on holiday. That’s a taste and an occasion all the money in the world couldn’t buy.
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