In the latest episode of What the Tech from Boast, we welcomed back returning champion Daniel Shum, CTO of CTK Bio, a company manufacturing the most sustainable materials and products on earth using upcycled plant waste. CTK’s products are 100% home compostable or 100% post-consumer recyclable, helping leading enterprises including Cisco, Gordon Food Services, and TriMark meet their ESG targets while staying sustainable both environmentally and financially.
Daniel was one of our first guests when we launched the podcast, and we couldn’t wait to hear what’s changed since our last conversation in late 2023. The answer? A lot—particularly around a major milestone that’s transforming how CTK operates and scales.
The Reshoring Revolution
The biggest news from CTK Bio is that they’ve successfully brought manufacturing to North America. This might not sound revolutionary at first, but understanding the context reveals why this is such a game-changer.
Previously, CTK would manufacture resins and pellets in-house in Canada, then ship them overseas to Korea where converters (companies that turn raw materials into finished products) would create the end products—which would then be shipped back to North America.
“It’s not because we wanted that,” Daniel explains. “But because we had no options at that time. New materials, not a lot of converters were susceptible to new materials. They’re hesitant.”
The breakthrough came through strategic partnerships with converters in both Canada and the United States. Now CTK can produce both materials and end products locally, dramatically reducing their carbon footprint while improving speed to market and cost efficiency.
“Our Canadian converter is literally next door. They’re within steps to make a resin and then just walk over next door to make products. That is crazy.”
This reshoring achievement aligns perfectly with CTK’s mission to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable materials. After all, what’s the point of creating environmentally friendly products if you’re burning massive amounts of carbon shipping them around the world?
Building the Ecosystem
What made this transformation possible wasn’t just finding manufacturers—it was building an entire ecosystem of partners who share CTK’s values and long-term vision.
Daniel shared a conversation with one of their partner CEOs, a semi-retired grandfather, who articulated the philosophy driving these relationships: “All the money we make in this lifetime isn’t even really for us. It might not even be for my kids, it might be for a few generations down the road. So why not join ourselves together and fight this battle together?”
This ecosystem approach encompasses the entire supply chain:
- Waste suppliers providing plant materials
- Material scientists developing formulations
- Converters manufacturing end products
- Financial partners like Boast supporting R&D tax credits
- Enterprise customers committed to sustainability goals
The key ingredient? Transparency. CTK is remarkably open with partners about margins, costs, and pricing requirements. Sometimes margins are 5-10%, sometimes 20-40%—it depends on the project. But by being transparent about what everyone needs to win, they create collaborative relationships rather than adversarial negotiations.
The R&D Breakthroughs
CTK has been pushing boundaries on two major fronts:
Compounding Innovation
On the compounding side (combining different materials to create new formulations), CTK has been working extensively with hemp and agave, successfully incorporating up to 50% of these plant materials into various applications.
“At first we thought it was as simple as just throwing two ingredients together,” Daniel admits. “But obviously it wasn’t that simple. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done marrying those two ingredients.”
The challenge isn’t just making materials that perform—it’s making materials that can run on traditional infrastructure at the same rates as conventional plastics. If your sustainable material requires slower production speeds, that translates to higher costs, which makes adoption harder.
CTK’s approach is to work backwards from customer requirements:
- What is the client willing to pay?
- How do they define sustainability for their application?
- What formulation achieves the right balance of performance, sustainability, and cost?
Synthesis from Waste
The bigger breakthrough is on the synthesis side—making their own materials directly from plant waste rather than depending on globally sourced raw materials.
“The long-term goal is not to need to depend on them,” Daniel explains. “We started synthesis about two years ago, and we managed to achieve that on a lab scale.”
The next milestone? Scaling from lab to pilot production, which they’re targeting within the next 12-24 months. The ultimate goal is commercial-scale synthesis, creating a vertically integrated supply chain entirely within Canada.
This level of R&D—systematic experimentation to solve genuine technological uncertainty—is exactly what programs like Canadian SR&ED and US R&D tax credits are designed to support.
The Sustainability Misconception
One of the most valuable parts of our conversation was Daniel’s perspective on how people misunderstand sustainability.
“No one really understands the term sustainability,” he notes. “There’s no one size fits all.”
CTK simplifies the conversation by focusing on two key questions:
- Are we looking at reducing carbon footprint?
- Are we looking at dealing with plastic waste?
Yes, solutions exist that tackle both—but expect to pay a premium. If budget is a constraint, which matters more to your organization? From there, CTK works backwards to find the right material solution.
The bigger misconception? Whether a material is “sustainable” often has less to do with the material itself and more to do with downstream infrastructure. Does your jurisdiction have proper waste management? Are there sorting facilities? Do recycling centers have the technology to process the material?
“That part is almost more important than the material itself.”
This is why CTK doesn’t impose their definition of sustainability on clients—they provide data and help clients make informed decisions based on their location, infrastructure, and priorities.
The Boast Partnership
As a Boast customer leveraging SR&ED tax credits, CTK represents exactly the kind of innovation these programs are designed to support. They’re not just optimizing existing materials—they’re developing entirely new synthesis processes, tackling genuine technological uncertainty around how to convert plant waste into high-performance materials.
Daniel describes the partnership as “seamless” and “getting better and better” with more support, fluent processes, and shorter processing times. But more than that, he sees Boast as part of the broader ecosystem:
“I genuinely feel if I had more questions or if I had favors to ask outside of filing, your team would do their best to provide me with those contacts or introductions. It’s almost a strategic partnership within the ecosystem that I can fall back on.”
The SR&ED program itself has been crucial to CTK’s success. “Without this, we wouldn’t be able to get where we are at least as fast today,” Daniel notes. For a company that started in 2017-2018 with “just an idea” from two founders without chemistry or engineering backgrounds, non-dilutive government funding has been essential for extending runway and accelerating R&D.
What’s Next
The focus for the next 12-24 months is clear: scale cellular synthesis from lab to pilot production, then move toward commercial scale. This will enable CTK to manufacture their own materials from waste that are “as close and comparable to traditional plastic as possible.”
When that happens, CTK will have achieved true vertical integration—controlling the entire supply chain from plant waste to finished products, all based in North America.
For Daniel personally, success looks like walking into any store with his two daughters and seeing products made from CTK materials. “My kids already do that sometimes at different restaurant chains,” he says. “It’s pretty cool. I wish to just broaden that.”
Key Takeaways
Reshoring matters – Bringing production closer to customers improves both sustainability metrics and business efficiency. Don’t sacrifice your environmental mission for operational convenience.
Build ecosystems, not just partnerships – Surround yourself with people who share your values and long-term vision. Transparency about margins and costs creates collaborative relationships.
Sustainability isn’t one-size-fits-all – Help customers understand trade-offs between carbon reduction and waste management. Provide data, not dogma.
R&D tax credits fuel innovation – For companies doing genuine experimental development, programs like SR&ED can significantly extend runway and accelerate progress.
Infrastructure matters as much as materials – The downstream waste management infrastructure often determines whether a “sustainable” material actually achieves sustainable outcomes.
