Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
GENEDGE Alliance Prepares Drake Extrusion, Inc., for Qualifying and Launching Two New Biodegradable/Sustainable Products
With the help of: GENEDGE
About
For over two decades, Drake Extrusion, Inc., of Martinsville, Virginia, has led the colored polypropylene fiber industry in North America where it employs over 180 workers. A subsidiary of Duroc AB’s International Fibres Group, Drake makes yarn for several markets, including automotive, home furnishings, rugs, and carpeting, as well as geotextiles for construction sites.
The Challenge
For many years, GENEDGE, part of the MEP National Network™, has provided service delivery to Drake addressing various needs. Since 2021, Drake has been a participant in the GO Virginia Reshoring Program assisting companies grow their capacity and capabilities. One result from the program has been biodegradability and sustainability testing support to aid Drake in its product development and branding decision-making. Drake reached out to GENEDGE for promotional marketing support to include channel approach content around two new products.
Drake Extrusion’s marketplace is requesting a more diversified polypropylene product portfolio for addressing our emerging clients’ needs for environmental, sustainable and green (ESG) solutions. GENEDGE previously has provided us consistent business services support with quality, lean and process improvement initiatives. We decided to approach them with the opportunity of assisting us with our ESG product commercialization, testing and branding needs. Their expertise and network helped us develop a product launch/branding strategy supported by biodegradability test (ASTM D5511) results demonstrating our processing capabilities. This demonstrated biodegradability capability resonates well for our emerging clients. We appreciate GENEDGE’s support on our journey.
MEP's Role
GENEDGE worked with an approved third-party contractor to develop creative concepts for a sustainability integration into the current website. After creative concepts – which involved evaluating others in the ESG space (environmental, sustainable and green) – GENEDGE and the approved third party helped to isolate the top messages to be communicated, along with the targets for those messages including product boilerplate and supportive key benefit states for the two new products. Navigation and marketing objectives were defined, and draft copy developed, then incorporated into a custom page template layouts for approval.