Allbirds’ flip-flop debuts – Business Insider

Allbirds is releasing a new style, flip-flops, to
celebrate the creation of its new green shoe sole
foam.
Allbirds

• Allbirds
  is releasing a brand-new style: a flip-flop that costs
  $35.
• The shoe is limited-run and uses the newest material
  the company has developed, a foam sole material made with sugar
  plants instead of petrochemicals.
• The environmentally friendly foam will also be used in
  the soles of the rest of its lineup in the coming months, and
  will hopefully also used by competitors. 

Allbirds isn’t going to let summer fly away before making its
mark.

Hot off the release of its
eucalyptus-tree shoes earlier this year, the company known
for its comfy shoes is releasing a new style: the Sugar Zeffer, a
flip-flop.

Retailing for $35, the shoe is made with the company’s newest
material development. The sole of the shoe is made with what the
company is billing as the first carbon-neutral green EVA foam.

Most EVA foam for shoe soles is made with petrochemicals, like
oil, but Allbirds has partnered with Brazilian chemical company
Braskem to make it out of sugarcane.

The flip-flops, which are a limited run, are the celebration of a
breakthrough co-founder Joey Zwillinger says is three years in
the making. The new sole technology will make its way over to the
rest of Allbirds’ shoe lineup, but a million dollars’ worth of
equipment needs to be installed first. Zwillinger said it’s only
a matter of a few months before that happens, though.

Allbirds

The new sole will be even more comfortable than the foam the
company currently uses in its shoes, according to Zwillinger. He
said that Allbirds even collaborated with a bra manufacturer to
make sure the strap of the shoe would be comfortable.

For the rest of the line, the new sugarcane sole won’t look much
different. The sugarcane EVA foam completes the trifecta of
renewable materials Allbirds has developed, Zwillinger says,
including the original Merino wool upper and the eucalyptus tree
fiber upper the company released earlier in 2018.

“That’s the simple, tangible, and very elemental description we
like to play around with,” Zwillinger said.

Allbirds

Zwillinger says the new foam is not proprietary, and Allbirds is
encouraging other companies, even competitors, to take up use of
the new foam, which would make it better — and likely cheaper to
use — for all participants.

“We agreed from the get-go that we want this to be used
broadly,” Zwillinger said. “We want it to be used in our
industry, we’re happy to have competitors use it.”

And while the flip-flops are only available for a limited time,
Zwillinger said they could be back next summer. 

“We’ll definitely consider bringing them back,” Zwillinger
said. “If it blows the door out and people absolutely fall in
love with it, we always listen to our customers, so this is one
of those where we’re certainly going to have our ears to the
ground and hear what the reactions like and then move from
there.”