The most direct path to a circular economy is to find two problems that fit together neatly, like a lock and key. For Joey Pham's Eorte Brand, the key is a hotel's worn-out bedsheet, and the lock is the same hotel's need for new staff uniforms. The Los Angeles-based startup collects textile waste from hotels at no cost, upcycles it into uniforms, and sells them back to the property at a discount. It is a proposition so simple it feels almost obvious, which is usually the sign of a good idea, or a very hard one.
The Wedge of Free Raw Material
Eorte's model turns a cost center for hotels,textile waste disposal,into a source of raw material and a discount on a necessary purchase. Founder Joey Pham explained the wedge in a video interview: they take hotel bedsheet waste "at no cost," convert it "into new product that you need," then sell uniforms "back to you at [a] discount" [YouTube]. The company claims to produce "high-quality, eco-friendly hospitality uniforms using recycled bedsheets," focusing initially on items like server aprons [LinkedIn]. For a hotel, the calculus is straightforward. Instead of paying to haul away old linens and then buying new uniforms from a traditional supplier, they get a sustainability story and a price break. Eorte gets a free feedstock and a built-in customer.
An Early-Stage Bet on Hospitality's Green Shift
The company, founded in 2022, is in its earliest commercial phases. Its primary backing to date is non-dilutive support from the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, which invested in an accelerator round in June 2024 [CB Insights, June 2024]. The startup has also participated in the UCLA Venture Accelerator. This places Eorte squarely in the prototype-to-pilot valley, where the next step is proving the model at scale with named hotel partners. The ambition, however, is expansive. Pham has stated the current focus is "only focused on hotel" customers, with plans to scale to airlines next and eventually to a retail or B2C offering [YouTube]. The bet is that hospitality brands, under increasing pressure to report on sustainability, will prioritize suppliers that help them reduce Scope 3 waste.
The Unit Economics of a Sheet
At its core, Eorte is a logistics and manufacturing play. The financial and environmental impact hinges on the density of its operations,how many sheets it can collect from a tight geographic cluster to keep transportation costs low, and how efficiently it can process them into durable, attractive garments. While specific figures are not public, the back-of-the-envelope potential is clear. A large hotel can go through hundreds of sheets a year. If Eorte can convert, say, 500 discarded sheets from a hotel cluster into 250 new aprons, it avoids the carbon footprint of producing new polyester or cotton fabric and the methane from landfilling the old linens. The company's stated goal is to make "sustainable uniforms … accessible to all" [LinkedIn], but the unit economics will determine if that's a marketing line or a viable business.
Where the Threads Could Snag
For all its elegant symmetry, Eorte's model faces real-world friction that goes beyond sourcing and sewing.
- Supply chain density. The economics require a high concentration of hotel partners in a region to make collection routes viable. A scattered clientele across multiple cities would quickly erode margins with fuel and labor costs.
- Uniform standards and scale. Hotels have specific branding and durability requirements. Eorte must prove its upcycled material can meet the wear-and-tear of daily hospitality use and be produced consistently at volume, moving beyond aprons to full uniform sets.
- The incumbent alternative. Traditional uniform suppliers operate at massive scale with global supply chains. They compete on price and reliability, not on waste reduction. Eorte's discount must be significant enough to sway procurement officers from known vendors.
The company's near-term roadmap is likely a single, flagship partnership with a hotel chain willing to be a launch partner and provide the concentrated feedstock and uniform order needed to prove the loop.
The Next Twelve Months
Eorte's immediate future is about moving from a compelling prototype to a commercial contract. The signals to watch for are a publicly announced hotel partnership, a detailed case study on waste diverted and costs saved, and any seed funding round that would finance the machinery and logistics for scaling collection and production. Success won't be measured in mission statements but in tons of textile waste kept out of landfills and the number of uniformed hotel employees wearing recycled sheets.
To put it in perspective, if Eorte can secure a deal with a mid-sized hotel group of 50 properties, the annual waste diversion could easily reach into the tens of tons. The company it must ultimately beat isn't another startup, but the entrenched, linear supply chain of uniform manufacturers and industrial laundries that have never had to think about where the fabric comes from, only where the finished product goes.
Sources
- [CB Insights, June 2024] Eorte Brand funding round | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/eorte-brand/financials
- [YouTube] Joey Pham interview on Eorte's model | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmqLPHlLDS0
- [LinkedIn] Eorte company description | https://www.linkedin.com/company/eorte
- [F6S] Eorte company profile | https://www.f6s.com/company/eorte