News story: Innovation loan recipient Callaly wins coveted industry award

Innovate UK loan recipient Callaly has won the innovation award at INDA’s annual Hygienix conference.

As the association of the nonwoven fabrics industry, INDA’s award celebrates the most innovative disposable hygiene products, judged on creativity, novelty, uniqueness and technical sophistication.

Callaly beat 2 other finalists with a combined annual revenue of $2 billion. Its product – the patented Tampliner – combines a tampon and pantyliner to prevent period leaks.

Major boost for Callaly

Callaly’s CEO and Co-Founder, Thang Vo-Ta, said:

To be acknowledged by such a forward-thinking industry body and its hundreds of members is a major boost of morale to every team member. It recognises what lies at the very heart of what we do, innovation.

The award fills us with great pride because it’s such validation of our hard work and relentless focus on innovation in all aspects of our business, from the product itself and the packaging we choose, to how we deliver our service and the way we talk about periods.

Successful innovation loans applicant

The award win comes weeks after it was announced that Callaly would receive a £1 million innovation loan from Innovate UK. This will fund the development of bespoke production equipment, which will allow it to scale up production of the Tampliner by 100 times.

Thang continued:

It’s one thing to invent a product, but for full and successful commercialisation you need to be able to produce it consistently, economically and at speed.

We’re using the funding to help us scale and meet increasing demand.

In order to make millions of a completely new product, we need to build bespoke automated machinery – a critical challenge we’re looking forward to solving with the help and support of Innovate UK.