Avo seeds a new alternative to microplastics

For the first time ground avocado seeds are being used in beauty products to replace the now banned and environmentally harmful microplastics.

After three years of research, development and product testing, Westfalia Fruit’s business in the UK is supplying ground avocado seeds to premium beauty brand Dr. Craft for use as an exfoliation ingredient in a range of cosmetics.

Johnathan Sutton, group safety & environmental executive at Westfalia Fruit has been working closely with Dr. Craft and its academic arm Keracol to ensure the use of avocado stones meets all the stringent safety requirements demanded of an ingredient in beauty products.

“The project has involved several UK universities, including Leeds and Kingston, to verify and validate the use of avocado seeds. The extraction process is very complex, but with perseverance a perfect particle size and process was discovered to work within a cosmetic body scrub as the replacement for microplastic beads.”

Upcycled avo waste as a cosmetic raw material

Currently, avocado waste components including skins and stones are used in low value anaerobic digestors. The sustainable inclusion in beauty products and cosmetics opens a new, higher value alternative in-line with Westfalia Fruit’s history of identifying, implementing and pioneering innovative and industry leading methods to reduce inputs and waste. It also reinforces the company’s commitment to protecting the health of the environment in which it operates, in the most sustainable way possible.

“The Dr. Craft brand is founded on scientific knowledge and expertise, using nature as our inspiration,” comments professor Richard Blackburn, co-founder and director of Keracol and the brand Dr. Craft. “With a focus on green chemistry, our previous research looked at extracts from wine industry grape waste and citrus peels in a number of different products, but the more we studied avocados the more interesting and exciting they became.”

The new Avocado Dr. Craft range has demonstrated proof of concept that the versatile fruit can be used not only in food but also as a replacement for microplastics within cosmetics, with a plethora of other workstreams in the process of development for use within a wide range of industries.

Committed to making a difference

“It’s been an exciting to journey,” explains Graham Young, global category management executive at Westfalia Fruit. “These are not overnight developments, however through extensive research, experimentation and demonstration and through the correlation and application of scientific knowledge we are proving that so much is possible coupled with partnering with likeminded organisations. I like to think of it as an example of good in the industry and that’s our purpose as a company, to do good.”

The new Dr. Craft body scrub incorporating avocado seeds as the exfoliant will launch soon, with additional products currently under development. Dr. Craft is available online and in premium UK and European retailers.