Melbourne-based sustainable packaging company Great Wrap has entered voluntary administration with debts of about $39 million, following years of financial losses and shifting market conditions.
Founded in 2019 by husband-and-wife team Jordy and Julia Kay, Great Wrap developed compostable cling wrap, catering wrap and pallet wrap made from food waste and plant-based polymers. It was the only Australian manufacturer producing compostable stretch wrap for both household and commercial use.
Administrators Brent Morgan and Shane Cremin of Rodgers Reidy were appointed to the company’s operating entity, Plantabl Packaging Pty Ltd, on 17 September 2025. All five employees were made redundant and operations at the Tullamarine facility were shut down.
At the time of administration, Great Wrap owed $8.5 million to secured creditor De Lage Landen, $2.5 million to non-related unsecured creditors, and more than $28 million to related-party creditors. Staff were owed about $104,000 in wages, superannuation and leave entitlements.
In a statement released on LinkedIn this week, Jordy Kay, chief executive and co-founder of Great Wrap, reflected on the company’s six-year journey and the circumstances that led to its collapse.
“In light of the current circumstances and that we have arrived at the conclusion of the Great Wrap story, we wanted to share a statement and a thank you to those who supported us on this journey,” he wrote.
“My wife and co-founder, Julia, and I made the first sale of the Great Wrap product all the way back in 2019. In 2020, we launched our direct-to-consumer brand, which received great press coverage from major mastheads, resulting in 30,000 orders in the first month. Customers loved the vision and impact Great Wrap could make.”
He said that early media attention drew strong interest from retailers and FMCG companies.
“We had RFQs with the retailers and trials underway. We had the biggest FMCG companies begging for our product,” he wrote.
“During the building phase, we had the amazing support of our investors and team with constant introductions and opportunities. We set up a well-known brand and eventually a high-performing product that competed perfectly against decades of innovation from the petrochemical stretch wrap industry.”
Kay acknowledged that the company struggled as markets began shifting away from compostable materials.
“Retailers and FMCG companies shifted strategy from replacing fossil-fuel plastics with compostable alternatives to vertically integrating their own plastic recycling operations,” he said.
“This meant the pipeline slowly subsided and demand weakened. We pushed on and grew the business to hundreds of enterprise customers and distributors, but that wasn’t enough to sustain the overheads of a plant to support a much larger vision.”
He said Great Wrap had identified opportunities in the US, but the Australian plant failed to break even. “Sadly, a combination of being unable to get the Australian plant to break even meant we ran out of time and capital to pursue the US expansion,” Kay wrote.
“Julia and I believed so strongly in this business, and I feel I have tried everything I could to make it a success. This isn’t the outcome any of our customers, team and investors wanted, and I can honestly say that I am sorry that the outcome wasn’t different.”
Kay said he would continue to support the administrators “to sell all equipment and materials, and to do my best to have all creditors repaid in full.” He concluded, “Julia and I went into this eyes wide open and swung for the fences to build something bold, but ultimately, we did not succeed. I hope our journey does not prevent others from trying in what can be a tough space, because if none of us tried, then we would live in a very dull world.”
In 2022, Great Wrap raised $24 million to expand its Melbourne facility, which it said could produce 30,000 tonnes of compostable pallet wrap per year. It also secured a national distribution deal with Opal Packaging Plus, the first compostable stretch wrap in Opal’s range and said it had diverted more than 15 million metres of plastic wrap from landfill.
The administrators said Great Wrap’s plant and equipment were built based on forecast demand that did not materialise, and adapting to the industry’s move toward recycled-content materials would have required new capital investment that was “not viable given existing financial constraints”.
A second meeting of creditors was held on 21 October, with no further information released yet.
