People often think about technology or a medical breakthrough when they hear the word innovation. But innovation comes in many forms, and in the case of Trace Femcare, it is in the form of a tampon, one made from hemp fiber and cotton grown using regenerative farming.
Claire Crunk, Founder and CEO of Trace Femcare, Inc., has dedicated herself to creating products that heal people and the earth. She and everyone at Trace believe products should be natural and traceable, ensuring customers know exactly what is being put in their bodies.
The questions below delve into Trace, its products, and what it means to run a woman-owned startup. This is one you do not want to miss.
Grit Daily: Who are the founders, and how did their backgrounds lead them to Trace?
Claire Crunk: I closed my clinical practice in 2018 after ten years as a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner due to some pretty nasty burnout. In those years, I treated countless patients with period and skin problems, frustrated with how unnecessarily hard it was to find products that were transparent with ingredients. That’s part of what made me realize how society unfairly places the work towards our collective health on the backs of women, all while bombarding them with secret, harmful chemicals in the personal care products we need. We have such a capacity for healing, but those healing hands are tied behind our back. I think we owe women better, and I wanted better for my three daughters and future grandchildren. At the same time, I was having a personal awakening to how I wanted to show up in life – to myself, others, and the earth – and felt irritated that the health of the earth, too, relied on the work of women. I felt guilty for not recycling and for buying all the single-use things. But, frankly, I didn’t have any more energy left to change – I was already doing my best to take care of everyone.
It was that year that I accidentally learned about hemp fiber from a random guy, who I now think was a guardian angel, at a music festival, which is just about the hemp-iest story ever. As a scientist with plant biology training, I dove in and learned about hemp’s ability to heal soils, save water, and grow pesticide-free while also being as absorbent and soft as cotton. It would make a perfect tampon – convenient while healing for both her and the earth. It felt like I uncovered a hidden gem, and it baffled me that no one had yet made hemp pads and tampons.
I quickly found out why: there wasn’t any quality hemp fiber available, outside of China, to make tampons, but I didn’t trust foreign production – it’s not transparent enough. So, I spent two years learning how to do it myself while piecing together a viable US supply chain that did not yet exist. We were all learning together. That work gave me, and consequently Trace, a foundation of expertise and deep relationships in hemp, textiles, and agriculture that gives our company significant advantages today.
Once I felt that I knew enough and had the right supply chain partners, I hired Olaf, my now cofounder and Strategic Product Developer, to help me design the tampon itself and lead supply chain innovation. He spent decades as a Research Fellow at Procter & Gamble with a passion for creative natural materials innovation, particularly hemp fiber, in disposable hygiene products. Total alignment.
I then met Meg, my other cofounder and Brand Director. We immediately clicked because she, a medical doctor, felt the same burnout and desire to use her healing talents differently. She became a Reiki practitioner and very artfully, from scratch, built a brand identity and network rooted in the same values as Trace. The balance between real science and ancient wisdom in holistic healing is exactly what our customer craves, and Meg has the talent to convey that in ways I haven’t seen before from any other brand.
Really, I couldn’t have conjured up a more perfect founding team for Trace. I’d like to take credit for it, but a lot of that magic happened by luck.
Grit Daily: What are some of the challenges running a women-owned startup? Has it affected fundraising at all?
Claire Crunk: First, a strong business with great leadership is gender-agnostic…and both qualities are required to launch a startup and secure investments. Also, the ability to bootstrap just isn’t typical – even those with the highest potential and best ideas. But, understandably, investors want to see that founders have real financial skin in the game before writing a check, no matter the gender. So, running a startup is freaking challenging to anyone!
However, we do face unique challenges in both funding and running companies as women. Historically, we haven’t enjoyed the same opportunities as men to work, generate wealth, and build networks that are often the lifeblood of startup fundraising because of gender inequality and the lack of contraception – we couldn’t even own a credit card until the late 70’s, right before I was born.
Then there is the still-lingering gendered workload of women – we’ve been running Trace with 5 school-aged children, one of whom is playing on my office floor right now. But, my choices were to put cash into this company or cash into additional childcare – I couldn’t afford both! I once had a startup colleague boast about sleeping in his office for days as a sign of his dedication to the company. Where were the kids??! Oh, yeah, with his wife.
I could also say a few choice words about venture funds wanting female-founded companies in their portfolios…at least as stated in their thesis. We all know that female-founded companies receive just 2% of venture capital…so, until more funds put their money where their mouth is, we women must find a different path.
So, I’m very grateful for my ability to have bootstrapped Trace in the beginning to gain traction before pitching, and I recognize that as a privilege that really isn’t fair.
However, I’m not complaining. These challenges are why women-run companies statistically perform better and what makes Trace stronger…and I absolutely love a challenge! We have to be more creative, more innovative, more organized, and more capital efficient than what’s normally expected in a business.
Now, specifically to Trace, we see a lot of male investors shut down at the word “tampon” before we even get into our company and value proposition. It’s actually kind of fascinating to see the eyes glaze over. So, I started pitching with our farm-to-body supply chain model first, and then eased them into the t-word. That helped a lot. Again, fascinating.
And it wasn’t until I saw a TikTok this fall (2 years since we brought in our first outside capital) that I realized men didn’t know that women use about 1 box of tampons per month. Basic stuff that we took for granted in our pitching. I had one man tell me “there aren’t enough women who care about this stuff” only to have another man exclaim how excited his daughter got when he mentioned it to her.
Several times I’ve had a man point me towards all-female venture funds rather than share access to more conventional investor networks…I really have a hard time understanding why men would pass up a look at a good investment because it involves vaginas.
All that said, we have amazing investors, most of whom are male surprising, and are never deterred by the no’s. We understand we aren’t for everyone, and that’s okay. We know there are investors out there excited for a company like ours – it’s just up to us to find them!
Grit Daily: What is the farm-to-body process all about?
Claire Crunk: I think we sometimes take for granted that tampons begin as living crops planted in soil. And what happens on-farm, and the subsequent manufacturing steps, matters for our health.
Farm-to-body means that Trace is directly involved with every step of our tampon production, beginning from seed and soil, with input into decisions as detailed as seed genetics, planting techniques, purification chemicals, and fiber length. It’s the only way to get the highest level of truth for what goes in our products, to ensure the very best quality, and to make a measurable healing impact on the environment.
This is not normal in our industry, though. Complex supply chains prevent manufacturers from knowing the truth of where, how, or by whom their organic cotton is produced. Tampon companies don’t know, or care to spend the resources, to challenge that system and simply use that manufacturer’s on-shelf raw materials and existing tampon designs. That’s why ingredient transparency has been so impossible and why there hasn’t been a materials innovation in tampons since the 1970’s. And it’s what perpetuates organic farming of cotton when regenerative farming is the real answer.
We are really proud of the work to achieve farm-to-body in order to heal. It has taken almost four years to hit that milestone, but we see it as setting a new tone that has put a paradigm-shift in motion. Our unique materials and business model really set the bar high for our competition.
Grit Daily: How does your tampon differ from other organic or sustainable products available? Why did Trace choose to use hemp fiber in its products?
Claire Crunk: This is covered some in the answers above.
Brands typically take sustainable to mean doing less harm by using less virgin plastic or by choosing organic cotton over conventional cotton.That’s great, and we applaud that, but it’s not new, everyone’s doing it…and it’s not good enough. For us, doing less harm is not the same as healing, and we believe our planet needs healing. Organic is outdated, and we wanted to push the envelope to do better! We are proud to take a step forward to focus on regenerative – farming practices rooted in ancient wisdom that nurture ecosystems and heal soil, both critical to reverse climate change and ensure abundant resources for future generations. Organic doesn’t do that.
Now, hemp is extra special. From a product standpoint, hemp fiber makes tampons function better while feeling as soft as cotton. The real magic, though, is its environmental effect: hemp is naturally regenerative. Its plant structure and physiology makes soils healthier, and it grows heartily without irrigation or pesticides. It also sequesters carbons as efficiently as trees, yet is rapidly renewable, ready for harvest in less than 60 days.
So, with those properties, using hemp fiber was a no-brainer. And by using it in menstrual products that are used by half of humanity and in perpetuity (quite literally until the end of time), we can scale that environmental healing for legacy-level impact.
No one told me it was going to be this hard to actually MAKE a tampon with hemp fiber, though, ha! The day our first tampon came off the line, I definitely cried tears of joy.
It is important to note that we use a gentle purification process that removes any potential CBD or THC from our hemp fibers. That may be in the cards one day, but right now we are focused on making the best tampon that heals the earth.
Grit Daily: Is there room in the market for a new tampon? What kind of growth is Trace expecting once its product hits the market?
Claire Crunk: Like I mentioned, all tampons on market today are essentially the same – some combination of the same materials, made by the same manufacturers, with different branding and messaging. Even with that, there are more brands of deodorants than tampons – it’s absurd. So, we feel really good about our unique position as a first-mover in both materials innovation and regenerative impact.
What’s more is that lifestyle brands of tampons are growing 50% year over year and have shaved off three points of market share from the big guys, real evidence of consumers’ excitement for new options.
Trace really blows everyone out of the water – offering customers something absolutely unique at the exact time they want it, and it’s kicking off an entirely new product category. We see a whole shelf at Target dedicated to hemp fiber and regenerative period care in the next 5-10 years, just like we saw happen with organic cotton.
As for growth, it’s all theoretical at this point, of course, but I’ve always been confident in our ability for exponential growth due to demand, our team, our product innovation pipeline, and market shifts. But, to be honest, I’ve been surprised at just how excited people are, even before sales begin. We are getting inquiries to white label and enter foreign markets and are in discussions for vertical expansion. Now, I’m still a nurse and a mom – always prepared for worst-case scenarios – but we are strapping in for a rocket ship launch with the confidence that there is nothing we can’t do.
Grit Daily: Why do you believe transparency is so important when it comes to Trace products?
Claire Crunk: This is addressed above, but I’ll go a bit more esoteric. First of all, transparency in period products is a matter of consent. We deserve to know everything about anything potentially entering our vaginas. It’s only by having all of that honest information, shared transparently, that we can make an informed decision for ourselves about our own bodies.
On a corporate level, there is a lot of pressure for companies to act like everything is perfect. It’s rooted in fear of investors or customers seeing an imperfection as a weakness and running the other way. And it’s a pressure that holds companies and their leaders back from being transparent, which is just another way of saying vulnerable. But being shiny and inauthentic is a brand killer.
We are not perfect, no one is. We believe in progress over perfection, in integrity, and in the power of vulnerability in helping us be our best selves. It can be scary to be transparent, to open ourselves to criticism. At Trace, we hope that, by being transparent and bluntly honest with our stakeholders, even when it’s scary, that we earn respect and trust. I won’t operate a business any differently than that – my daughters are watching.
Grit Daily: How will the cost of Trace products compare to traditional period care products?
Claire Crunk: We are at an equal price point to our nearest competitors, also in the premium product category. Historically, menstruation rates and product demand increase in economic downturns. In fact, we’ve already seen product shortages and a 25% increase in prices across the board in 2022 even after we set our price point. Because of our farm-to-body model, we have some built in cost stability that’s pretty unique to a lifestyle brand.
Grit Daily: Is there anything else you would like people to know?
Claire Crunk: We are raising capital now at a $50K check minimum in our current round closing 1/30/23. We have major asset acquisitions in the first quarter of this year and are expanding our team. It’s an exciting time – interested investors can contact me directly.
Additionally, I like to mention that we are founding members in the California Cotton & Climate Coalition. Our partners include Carhartt, Reformation, Mate the Label and other national and global brands – all working together pre competitively to support the expansion of regenerative agriculture.
