The planet needs regenerative solutions

What started under a tree grew into Yash Papers—CHUK’s parent company. Founded by KK Jhunjhunwala, an entrepreneur, traveler, and a visionary with support from his wife’s selfless act of selling her wedding jewelry. With a 1940-ton capacity and a focus on low-grammage kraft products, this marked the first step towards a sustainable future for the world.

As the low grammage kraft market expanded, so did we—reaching a 10,000-ton capacity. But this growth wasn’t just about scaling; it was about moving forward with a shared purpose. As Pakka started reaching places, KK’s adventurous spirit took him to new heights, while Ved ensured the operations never missed a beat.

Pakka got enlisted on the BSE. It was a start to bringing people together to dream a better future together. This platform in the early years of the mission made him more powerfully believe that change is not far ahead if the world joins hands together.

Pakka took self-sufficiency quite seriously and set up a power plant fueled by rice husk. We then became the only compostable tableware business globally to supply all our own energy from bio-fuel. With community efforts and choosing better, we witnessed an increase to 16,000 tons, powered by a 2.5MW plant, striving towards our dream of a cleaner planet.

We pushed boundaries, and this time geographical. Choosing paper for everything from apples in Iran to surgical gloves in South Africa, we witnessed the shared will to do better with people around the world.

Solving the next challenge is the aim. With the low-grammage markets getting crowded, specialty-grade papers caught our attention. McDonald’s and Cafe Coffee Day were amongst the first few who witnessed these papers in action!

Chemical recovery grabbed our attention and investments. With continuous efforts, we can recover 95% of cooking chemicals today—always pushing for wiser solutions to every challenge.

It was time to look at things differently. Our international research teams chose packaging that required early attention due to the mass usage—chip bags and tea pouches. The next thing that aligned with mass usage was tableware. It grabbed our interest and widened our outlook on packaging. And that is how researchers had their next big challenge in front of them.

Talks about sustainability turned into action through meaningful investments in pulp molding projects and sugarcane pulp. By aiming to create effective yet sensible solutions for challenges, we went after making choosing wiser easier for businesses.

After three years of relentless efforts—securing funding, building a dedicated team, designing effective solutions through market analysis, and setting up a plant with eight giant machines—CHUK was officially launched! But the real victory? 50% of the new plant was staffed by village women, including some who are specially abled—doing better for the world, together.

With CHUK winning your hearts and accolades like India’s first BCorp certification and prestigious design awards from Germany, Japan, and India, the dream started to take shape as the world’s choice.

Yash Papers transformed into Yash Pakka—to encompass the evolution from being a paper company to a business that believes in doing better with you. By tapping into innumerable solutions that nature holds, people would move towards a cleaner planet, together.

On July 11, 2023, we were listed on the NSE, marking a milestone in a 42-year-long journey, shaped by countless hands and hearts. As part of this journey, we adopted a simpler, global name—Pakka—to bring regions and their shared initiatives under one roof. In this spirit of progress, we’re partnering with sugar companies in Guatemala to establish the world’s largest facility for compostable flexible packaging and molded fiber products. This is just the beginning of a global movement.

Flexible compostable packaging was the next step towards doing better, magically (okay, not magically!). This solution aimed to bring together industries in different market segments for a shared goal. With packaging that vanishes, the power would be in our choices to do better.