Creativity and function in eco-friendly products

A fast rising player in the mobile smartphone accessories field, Touch & Drag Co., Ltd. (T&D) is poised to capture the majority of the demand for innovative smartphone products. T&D CEO Mr. Daniel Lee (Lee Chang Young) discusses with International Plastics News for Asia (IRNA) the company’s eco-friendly coffee cup lids and groundbreaking plastic touch pens and how T&D addresses the need for smartphone accessories that not only combine creativity with function, but are friendly to the environment as well.

 

 

Mr. Daniel Lee, CEO, Touch & Drag Co., Ltd.

 

IRNA: What are the main competitive features of your products?

Mr. Lee: Aside from the ever growing smartphone and tablet market in Korea, coffee consumption has grown along with the market trend as well. With the Korean coffee market pegged at $3.6 billion a year (2011 figure), the consumption of caffeinated drinks has not only produced a strong industry in the Korea but also has contributed to the alarming rate of disposable waste products such as coffee cups, lids, plastic stirrers, etc. T&D's team of product designers and innovators came up with the Eco-lid, a recyclable smartphone stand built-in on the coffee/drink cup lid. It combines function and form plus ease to the smartphone consumer.

 

For our Eco-Lids, I believe we’re the first company to combine a coffee/drink cup lid with a smartphone stand. We saw the need to provide smartphone users with an easier way to hold their phones and drinks at the same time with one hand. Our Eco-lids are made from recycled plastic materials that in turn can be reused and recycled, thus creating a more eco-friendly product for our environment. We offer many types of Eco-lids, not only for coffee but also for iced drinks and other food products like yogurt, in different plastic material types: PET, PP, PS and silicone.

 

Korea has always been one of the world’s leaders in smartphone technology. It is not surprising that Korea is also a leader in innovating smartphone accessories. As such, T&D has come up with the first plastic touchpens for the smartphone and tablet market. Designing plastic touchpens is quite hard. The first touchpens that came out in the market had to have a metal body for it to work on the phone or tablet screen.The metal casing around the penconducts electricity from your hand to the smartphone screen for it to function. Our designers have come up with a patented design that allows the same thing to work even with a plastic body for the touchpen. Thus, we are able to offer a wide variety of plastic touchpens that it turn can be stamped with marketing logos and colorful designs at a much more competitive, cheaper price.

 

IRNA: What are the plans of T&D for its domestic and export markets?

Mr. Lee: Currently, T&D's Eco-lid domestic market is pegged at 70% of our total sales. We are currently filling bulk orders from the Korea Train Express (KTX) and the Seoul F&B division. We are currently in talks with local convenience stores and popular coffee chains such as Cafe Bene, Angel-in-us, even Starbucks for the provision of our smart Eco-lids for their beverages. We have submitted proposals that are now under review and being finalised. For our touchpens, most of our production is set for the domestic market, with only 7% marked for export. Local marketplace distribution for our T&D touchpens includesthe Korean baseball team, Lotte Giants, and Lotte World theme park and various grocery chains and stationary stores.

 

Since the company is fairly new, T&D products are currently being exported to the US, Australia, Thailand and Japan only. There is plan to aggressively push our products to the greater US and Australia markets, as we are being only being distributed in some US cities and limited Australia areas for the time being. Expansion and export plans for England and Canada are our company’s top priority to expand our overseas export base. Of course, with the ever growing China market, we are also eyeing to break into that competitive export market as well.

 

IRNA: Where are your plants located in Korea?

Mr. Lee: For our Eco-lids, we have three plants located in the Chungcheongbukdo province. Two of these plastic manufacturing factoriesare located in the Geungpyeong area while another is in the Jincheon area. Aside from our Eco-lids, all of these manufacturing facilities can produce 800 different types of plastic products such as ice cups, food & beverage containers, take-out containers, air filter sheets, seedling housings and storage containers. Each plant has a manufacturing capability of producing 500,000 Eco-lids in a daily basis. These plants all have ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification. The manufacturing facilities also have been awarded the UKAS Environment Management accreditation. For our silicone eco-lids and collapsible cups, Korea Chemical Co. ltd. (KCC) provides the manufacturing aspect for our silicone cup and collapsible cups.

 

For our touch pens, we source the different touch pen parts from our Korea suppliers. These in turn get processed and assembled at ourDoksan-ro facility inGeumcheon-Gu, Seoul. In this Seoul facility, we produce different touch pen types such as ballpoints, gel pens and mechanical pencils. Our current monthly output is pegged at 30,000 units a month. For orders over our monthly 30,000 capacity, we outsource our production with other ISO-certified pen manufacturers in the greater Seoul area.

 

IRNA: What are the steps your company takes to ensure the quality of your products?

Mr. Lee: Aside from sourcing our materials from reputable plastic suppliers in Korea, we also make sure that we use mainly recycled raw plastic materials in our T&D Eco-lids and touch pen products. Each step of the manufacturing process for both is scrutinized and checked carefully for quality assurance and control. I am pleased to say that with our domestic sales, only less than 1% of our total sales account for product rejects and returns. We aim to make that number even smaller as we continue to strive to provide quality smartphone accessories at very competitive rates.

 

IRNA: Where do you obtain your raw materials and machinery?

Mr. Lee: As I mentioned before, most of our raw plastic suppliers are based in Korea, even for our silicone-based products. We want to ensure the quality of each T&D product by sourcing and using the best PP, PET and PS plastic raw materials. This sets us apart from most plastic manufacturers who source and produce plastic materials from China where quality control is not always assured to be at thebest of standards.

 

Our plastic extruder AVP 1001005 machines are provided by the DaeKwang Machinery Co. Ltd. We get our pressing and heating/molding machinery from Germany and Japan, leaders in the plastic production industry for such types of machinery. Still, the systems we employ on these machines are Korean-based.

 

IRNA: Do you have plans to launch new products? Or expand production capacity?

Mr. Lee: Our designers are constantly designing and coming up with innovative concepts for our touch pens and other smartphone accessories like the Eco-lids. We are expanding our touch pens to combine them with other smartphone accessories such as lip gloss/ lip stick holders, perfume trinkets, smart coin holder (for shopping carts and golf markers), and even USB memory sticks. We constantly push ourselves to come up with novelty products that are fun, creative and innovative. Korea’s Ministry of Education has lined-up a program to issue tablets for the lower education levels (middle school and high school students), We are eyeing to forge a partnership with the government to provide our T&D touch pens for said program. This will establish our foothold on the touch pen industry in Korea and we hope this cooperation will further strengthen our company's leadership in the market.

 

 

For Eco-lids production, T&D has 3 plants located in the Chungcheongbukdo province

 

Touch & Drag Co., Ltd.

Tel: +82-2 3272 8258

Fax: +82-2 3272 8259

E-mail: cylee@touchndrag.com

Website: www.touchndrag.com