A wonderful opportunity - Wilding & Co: "making scents of nature"

I wanted to share a great social business that has recently launched that addresses "opportunity" in a really interesting way. Wilding & Co (http://www.wilding.co/), founded by a group of enterprising entrepreneurs led by Michael Sly. They take a serious environmental challenge, Wilding Pines, a non native pine tree that grows wild in NZ and thrives in our environment,  and turns it into an essential oil that is exported to the US - "making scents of nature". They are now supplying DoTERRA, the world's largest essential oil reseller and recently launched their product to 40,000 delegates at a conference in the US (plus an  online audience of 2 million!).  They "make scents of nature" - taking a "waste" product in one market, to provide a premium product in another.

This reminds me of the story of Watties (http://www.watties.co.nz/- founded in the 1930s, Jim Wattie saw rotting fruit on the ground and thought there had to be something more productive that could be done with the fruit, rather than see it go to waste. From that starting point, Watties is now a household name in NZ, and there would be few NZ households that wouldn't have Watties products in the cupboard - with Watties tomato sauce being a favourite - (this is a retro commercial that states the importance of this product to Kiwis - a trip down memory lane for some:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qazPkHH74L8 ).

So there is $$ in waste - taking a problem and turning it into a viable business - two examples of great Kiwi entrepreneurs.