Episode Details

This week on the Hemp Show, Claire Crunk returns. She is the founder of Trace Femcare, the worlds first hemp fiber tampon.

Her first appearance on the podcast was in 2023. Her company was just a few weeks away from their initial product launch. All they were waiting for was final approval from the FDA. She assumed then that things would be easier than they ultimately turned out to be.

On this episode we find out what happened with the FDA and how the agency's request for an additional study was a major setback for Trace.

What the FDA wanted from Trace was an exhaustive extraction study and mass spectrometry analysis, which would take 12 months and cost 150 thousand dollars.

"So that's 12 additional months of operating expenses of runway added to the company as well. So it's not just a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It becomes, you know, four hundred thousand dollars," Crunk said.

Ultimately, the company could not overcome the burden and Trace was forced to sell its assets.

The story of Trace and Claire's battle with FDA is one of the story lines in the documentary film One Plant, which has finished production and is seeking a distribution channel now.

But when the film ends, the Trace story remains unresolved.

"But the story never actually ends. It just melts and changes," said Crunk.

"There's just been a lot of reckoning in my life and I've changed in different ways and, you know, understand now what it means to have grace through failure and to figure out what to take forward from that."

There was great interest in the company's assets among in the feminine hygiene space.

"There were these big entities that are on shelf at every retailer that you could ever go to who were very interested in picking us up and did some due diligence on it," Crunk said.

This was at the time when the new Trump administration was imposing tariffs all around the world.

"There was a lot of uncertainty in the absorbent hygiene world because it is a globalized supply chain."

A Blessing in Disguise

Because of how the sale of the assets was structured, Crunk had no say in who bought the company.

She was pleasantly surprised when 1937 International showed interest and ultimately made the acquisition.

"1937 International is a fairly new US entity that is working very diligently in a joint venture with groups in Pakistan to set up hemp fiber ecosystems in Pakistan. And you know, Pakistan is globally renowned for textile production, fiber knowledge, fiber production. Fiber agronomy," she said.

Ryan Zaczynski, co-founder of 1937 International, was a guest on the Hemp Show this past March, and his fellow co-founder Nick Furlong was featured on our episode from the Industrial Hemp International conference.

Crunk said that part of 1937 International's vision "is to have hemp fiber win across categories and across the world."

This development was more than Crunk could hope for.

"It turned it from a grief process and what felt like something being taken away from m