The Cheeky Panda: Bamboo Pioneers Making an Impact

Discover the sustainable revolution led by Chris Forbes and Julie Chen, co-founders of The Cheeky Panda, as they harness the power of bamboo to create eco-friendly tissue and hygiene products that are transforming the industry and paving the way for a greener future

Chris Forbes and Julie Chen are the co-founders of The Cheeky Panda, an award-winning sustainable business creating bamboo-based tissue and hygiene products. Since launching in 2016, the company has sold over 50 million products and built up a loyal customer base attracted to their quality, ethically-sourced goods.

Forbes and Chen were inspired to start The Cheeky Panda to find an alternative to deforestation. They saw bamboo as the perfect solution. As the world’s fastest-growing plant, it’s a highly renewable resource that can produce sustainable alternatives to wood and cotton.

“In a world of stretched resources we thought why not use bamboo the worlds fastest growing plant as an alternative to deforestation,”

says Chen.

The Cheeky Panda officially launched in 2016 and has gone from strength to strength since then. Their biggest achievements to date have been the sheer volume of products sold and the community of customers they’ve built. But for the founders, the real impact is in the numbers of trees saved, carbon cut and plastic reduced.

“The more we sell the bigger our impact,”

says Forbes.

Forbes and Chen have pioneered the use of bamboo in an industry that has traditionally relied on less sustainable materials. Thanks to their vision and determination, The Cheeky Panda is transforming the hygiene and tissue product sector. And they’re just getting started. The company is looking ahead to the future and new ways to expand their environmental impact.

As finalists in this year’s Great British Entrepreneur Awards, Chris Forbes and Julie Chen are being recognised as leading lights in ethical business. The Great British Entrepreneur Awards, known as “The Grammys of Entrepreneurship”, take place in London on November 20th.