For Jeff Yurcisin, the CEO of Grove Collaborative, hearing about a new study showing an alarming number of nanoplastics found in the human brain reinforced his mission to help the company become "the first plastic-neutral retailer."
In an interview with The Cool Down, Yurcisin said he was startled to learn that about 0.48% of the weight of brains in the study — with participants aged around 45 to 50 — was plastic, according to the publication in the journal Nature Medicine.
Pair that with the fact that there are 240,000 plastic particles in a one-liter plastic water bottle, and the connection between environmental health and human health is undeniable.
"When we think about environmental health and human health, these are crazy data points," he said. "Our mission is serving this conscientious consumer who is trying to make the right decision for their family and the planet."
After holding leadership roles at Zulily and Amazon, Yurcisin joined Grove Collaborative in 2023 to help revitalize the sustainable retailer. Now he's doubling down on Grove's focus on providing healthier choices for your home, enabling consumers to reduce plastic exposure, use products with nontoxic ingredients, and more.
On the issue of reducing plastic, Grove has led the way since 2020 as the first plastic-neutral retailer, through partnerships first with Plastic Bank and now with rePurpose Global.
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We spoke to Yurcisin about his plan to make Grove Collaborative the go-to, one-stop-shop for people interested in making healthier choices — and why he's "not backing down" while other companies might be stepping back.
Customer-first: Ditching fees and adding new products
To reverse Grove's previous financial declines, Yurcisin told us his top priority since joining the company has been to listen to customers. He literally sits in on customer calls and has even called customers himself to find out what Grove could do better.
These conversations have encouraged him to expand the company's focus beyond cleaning and home products. "We have a great heritage around sustainability, really leading on plastic [reduction]," he explained. "And customers trust us to go into other categories as well."
Some examples? Customer interest in nontoxic cookware led the Grove team to bring brands like Caraway and GreenPan onto their platform. And the overlap between health and sustainability led them to acquire nutrition supplement brand 8Greens.
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In the same vein, Yurcisin ditched Grove's subscription requirement, which often frustrated customers, in favor of an optional subscription program that rewards customers with discounts. He also stopped the process of auto-filling customers' carts with suggested items.
Reaching mainstream Americans — directly
"They're not just urban coastal professionals," Yurcisin said of Grove customers. "We actually do pretty well even among rural households." Grove's typical customers are women who are "more likely to have children, have kids in the home, have pets, and they just care about the type of products they're surrounding themselves with."
Grove's approach is about "progress not perfection" — finding affordable products that work for mainstream America. Even though the company is committed to reducing plastic and reducing toxins, its offerings aren't zero-waste or completely devoid of chemicals. "We're trying to help people get a little bit better," he explained.
Yurcisin said over 5 million customers have made a decision to purchase from Grove, with about 700,000 active customers over the past 12 months. And he said the team has identified a larger pool of around 57 million "conscientious consumers" who want to make better choices for themselves and their planet.
While Grove previously had major distribution deals with retailers like Target, it has decided to stop selling at brick-and-mortar stores and start selling exclusively online. "This was a big debate," Yurcisin said.
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"Other companies may be making different choices," he explained, but ultimately the Grove team felt it was harder to explain the important "why" behind their brand on store shelves — often the health impact of choosing a nontoxic or reduced-plastic product. "It's harder to tell that story as you're walking down the aisle," he said.
And Yurcisin believes Grove can serve customers who care about health and sustainability better than other online retailers like Amazon. "This is where we aspire to really earn the customer's trust with very high ingredient standards and a direct-to-consumer play," he said.
While others walk back, Grove is all in
Many big brands are revising their sustainability commitments, but Yurcisin and the Grove team are "not backing down."
"Sustainability is the only future. Period." And, he says, it's OK that "it may not appeal to every consumer. They can shop somewhere else. Our job is to serve our consumer really well, and we are accelerating our efforts, not backing down."
Grove proudly displays its "No Way Ingredients" on its website and provides transparent information about products. Plus, Grove recently launched an Impact Tracker to measure every gram of plastic in everything it sells. "No one does this," Yurcisin said.
"We're proud of our commitments and being a B Corp [a certification that balances purpose and profit] and think we can tell those stories well."
Favorite Grove products?
These are Yurcisin's picks:
8Greens effervescent tablets, which he says rival the popular Athletic Greens — and which will soon be available directly via Grove Collaborative
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