Twipes advances in a pitch competition. Sound familiar?
Twipes just cleared a gate that most consumer brands never get near.
The Buffalo-based maker of truly flushable, biodegradable wet wipes has been fast-tracked through Walmart's Road to Open Call, earning an invitation to pitch the retailer's buyers at its annual Open Call event in Bentonville, Arkansas, this October.
Road to Open Call is Walmart's traveling talent search for products made, grown, or assembled in the U.S. The best performers walk away with a "fast pass," a guaranteed seat at the main Open Call event without going through the standard application gauntlet.
Twipes got one.
"The buyer actually loved our product, loved us as individuals," said cofounder Al Bozorgi.
The former 43North winning company’s wipes can already be purchased on Walmart.com.
Twipes is currently raising money to onshore its manufacturing, which is still outsourced even though its core, operations, finance, and marketing teams all sit in Buffalo. The founders want to build that production capacity in Western New York, shoring up the supply chain for opportunities exactly like this one.
"Why set up a hub somewhere else in America when our whole team is here?" Bozorgi said.
