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TBPN · 2 min · Oct 22, 2026

PlantSwitch moved into manufacturing after enterprise sales stalled

Dillon Baxter says large enterprise deals for its material failed to close, so PlantSwitch built production itself. The pivot also meant learning food packaging sales and distribution.

DB

Dillon Baxter

  • John Coogan, Host · Co-host, TBPN

    Co-founded Soylent and Lucy; OpenAI bought his show TBPN in April 2026.

  • Jordi Hays, Host · Co-host, TBPN

    Founded Branded Native; co-founded fintech Capital, which Rho bought.

About this segment

Dillon Baxter says large enterprise deals for its material failed to close, so PlantSwitch built production itself. The pivot also meant learning food packaging sales and distribution.

From “Matthew Prince on PHP2Shell, Duo on Arrival, 100 Really Difficult Phone Calls, Norwegian Gold Scheme”, Oct 22, 2026. Watch the full episode

“nothing ever really got to the finish line. And so that's when we said, you know, screw it, let's just go fully vertically integrated.”
DBDillon Baxterat 1:15:52 · TBPN1:15:52

Takeaways

  1. Selling the material to manufacturers failed to close deals.
  2. PlantSwitch chose to build a vertically integrated production site.
  3. It sells through food-service distributors and major customers.

In this episode

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  6. 1:14:24PlantSwitch moved into manufacturing after enterprise sales stalled2:23

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Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 1:14:29

    based alternatives what was the what was the actual build out i mean are there co-packers for this or did you have to set up manufacturing on day one so we set up a fully fully vertically integrated production site so we do everything from the raw material to the finished goods which is you know i think we're the only ones that are doing that for a whole portfolio of products today so we started off developing the material and we got to something that felt and functioned like plastic but biodegraded like a plant so you can throw our material we don't recommend it but in ocean or in your backyard it's going to biodegrade naturally with no microplastics and so truly zero waste really just goes away like a plant does but is that like a multi is that like a few years i remember i would get biodegradable airsoft bbs as a kid um and i would find them years later

  2. 1:15:25

    making some progress okay but there's a little green wash in there i think but ours has been tested to biodegrade in just a few months in most environments. Oh, that's pretty good. Okay. That's solid. So what's the sales strategy? Are you going to like restaurant supply conferences? How do you actually get this into the stores that I've seen these sold at? So originally we just wanted to make the material and then sell it to manufacturers because it can work on their equipment and that didn't work.

  3. 1:15:54

    We tried, we had, you know, a bunch of big enterprise deals we were working on and nothing ever really got to the finish line. And so that's when we said, you know, screw it, let's just go fully vertically integrated. We'll do it ourselves. We'll do it ourselves. We'll make a whole food packaging business. Let's learn everything there is to know about food packaging, which I never really expected to do.

  4. 1:16:13

    and now we've gotten you know pretty decent at it so we sell through food service distributors we work with companies like walmart we work with event companies like live nations and legends global and then we're partnered with distributors like imperial brady and bunzel where then they go sell into the restaurants for us which a bit more of an efficient way to do it so we had to take a little crash course in the last few years of how to build a food packaging business on top of a material science business.

  5. 1:16:39

    Yeah. How's the business been scaling? I see, I see the product everywhere.