Our story
Our Founder
In the summer of 2019 Brighton-based better company founder, mother-of-two Ruth, was already on a journey to make her family home more sustainable, changing daily habits and products, when she began to realise the planet-damaging reality of her period each month. She was fed up with endless disposable sanitary products, knowing that they were all ending up in landfill and our oceans.
“Growing up, the only time I heard menstrual cups mentioned were whisperings in school changing rooms - they sounded intimidating and not at all appealing”
The better company founder, Ruth Marsden
But, as with many menstrual cup evangelists, it was a close friend waxing lyrical - in this case, Ruth’s younger sister raving about making the change - that pushed Ruth to take the plunge for herself.
Fast forward a couple of months and new menstrual cup convert Ruth was sitting outside her parents’ house having a cup of tea in the early evening sun with older sister Martha, a teacher visiting from her home in Zimbabwe. The idea to start her own brand of sustainable female sanitary wear was niggling away in the back of Ruth’s mind and that conversation was the boost she needed to jump off the business-start-up cliff.
Chatting about the rural farm school that Martha helped to found, they discussed the heartbreaking and ever-increasing issue with keeping teenage girls in education. One of the overriding reasons for a teenage girl’s absence is her monthly period and her lack of sanitary wear.
And so, the passion behind The better company was born: to create sustainable products of exceptional quality, and for every sale to gift one to a person that needs it most.
Our First Partnership
Ruth’s sister’s school is Hope School, Zimbabwe, which offers education to around 420 local children who typically live in basic two room, brick or mud homes, many without electricity or running water. They survive on an average family income of $1 per day. This makes sanitary pads unaffordable for the girls who attend the school. Currently the school relies on donations of sanitary pads from well-wishers, as the girls previously had no other option than to use rags during their period. However, since Zimbabwe is currently in one of the worst times of inflation in history, even these donated pads are becoming unaffordable.
One of the leading problems with poor school attendance among girls in that area (and of course, many others) is lack of sanitary wear. And we just don't think that’s okay. It breaks our hearts at bettercup that such a basic human need is not being met and that girls are missing out on their education, and future prospects, because of something so simple.
The exciting opportunity with gifting a bettercup to each of these girls is that it is a long term answer to the problem, rather than a fleeting aid.
No need for more sanitary pads donated month after month, expensive and destined for landfill. That one cup will enable the girls to focus on their education for the rest of their schooling, rather than worry each month how they will get through their period and still focus on their studies. As well as gifting cups to the teenage students, we also include the female staff who, sadly, are also affected by period poverty due to the current dire economic state of the nation.
We are thrilled to be working with Hope School, but it doesn’t stop there; we have exciting plans in the pipeline to partner with other brilliant schools and charities, both overseas and here in the UK. Because every person, whatever their story, deserves better.