Karina Sudenyte and Maciek Kackprzyk are two young Welsh entrepreneurs who decided to tackle the left-over food and plastic waste problem with one business, Wonky Drinks. The social enterprise was created by the two at ages 20 and 23 with a successful crowdfunding campaign. Within a year, the two were buying ugly, but edible fruit at 70% of market price and bottling the unique juice in recycled glass bottles. In doing so, Wonky Drinks has prevented 175 tons of fruit from going to a landfill. The business’ main source of revenue currently comes from B2B sales with partnerships including Bank of America, HSBC and Merrill Lynch, KPMG, and caterer BaxterStorey. Moving forward, the company’s goals include giving more drinks to charity, reducing 10,000 tons of produce waste, and breaking into supermarkets with different canned drinks.

Karina and Maciek have won a Young Entrepreneur of the Year trophy at the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2017 for their work. During their childhood, Karina would help her mom sell household goods and Maciek would attempt to sell paper shoes to his neighbors. Maciek has now earned two masters degrees in law and Karina is focusing on earning a BA in Business Management. Their entrepreneurial spirit coupled with their academic achievements is a testament to the good that can be done when  natural creativity meshes with acquired knowledge.