Can You Really Make Money with Circular Kitchens?

Spoiler: Yes. And Simon Rombouts from Chainable is proving it with Kitchen-as-a-Service.

"In five years, we will provide a kitchen cheaper than the traditional linear way, because our material resources are already harvested." In this episode of Going Circular Pays Off, host Sandra Horlings and circular expert Christiaan Kraaijenhagen talk to Simon Rombouts, CEO of Chainable. This Dutch scale-up is completely disrupting the real estate and social housing sector by offering kitchens as a service.

In the Netherlands alone, 500,000 kitchens are thrown into incinerators every year. Chainable tackles this massive waste problem with a modular, circular kitchen designed to last up to 60 years. By replacing plate materials with a recycled steel frame and decoupling the long-lasting base from the aesthetic exterior, they prove that building a sustainable business is the smartest long-term economic strategy for corporate landlords.

🎧 Chapters & Key Topics:

• (00:00) Introduction: Becoming a material bank to beat linear pricing.

• (01:35) Meet Simon Rombouts: From De Kleine Aarde to embedding economic and environmental impact.

• (02:30) Linear vs. Circular Kitchens: Reusable components vs. single-use incineration waste.

• (03:15) Solving the 500,000 Kitchen Waste Problem: Helping housing corporations achieve ESG goals.

• (04:00) B2B vs. B2C Pivot: Why standardization and long exploitation timelines favor housing associations.

• (05:10) Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): Taking full maintenance responsibility for 20 years.

• (06:20) Product-Market Fit: Scaling to 400 kitchens a year with Woonpartners Helmond.

• (07:22) The Co-Founders' Story: Blending Simon's sustainable business theory with Kees's 50 years of industry expertise.

• (09:12) The Design Shift: Creating a recycled steel 'corpus' that uses 40% less plate material.

• (10:48) Shifting Incentives: Helping appliance manufacturers monetize refurbishment lines instead of sales volume.

• (12:12) The Three Revenue Models: Rental, buyback guarantees, and the hybrid appliances-only lease.

• (13:30) Supporting the Social Domain: Providing energy-efficient white goods to lower tenants' energy bills.

• (14:35) Material Passports: Utilizing QR codes and AI bots to track CO2 savings and component health.

• (15:26) Beyond Circularity: Balancing break-even growth with social return jobs in Tilburg.

• (16:03) The Chainable Forest: Planting over 40,000 trees to secure future bio-based building resources.

• (16:55) Unfair Playing Fields: Shifting the market despite cheap international linear competition.

• (17:48) Disruption: Forcing legacy incumbents to adopt sustainable business practices.

• (18:50) Simon's Golden Tip: Don't wait until it's perfect—just start chipping away.

• (19:35) Scaling Europe: Transforming from a local kitchen builder into a scalable European structural framing system.

💡 The Takeaway

"I envision it within five years that we can provide a kitchen cheaper than doing it the current linear traditional way... because I will become my own material bank for the price that I bought it for 5 or 10 years ago." — Simon Rombouts

Listen now on your favorite podcast platform and dive into these game-changing ecofriendly business stories!

👉 Ready to convert raw waste into long-term residual value? Share this episode with your network and visit innoboost.com to discover how to build a circular business case that outlasts the competition.

Show notes

• Look at ⁠www.chainable.nl⁠ to learn more about their 88% circularization.

• Visit ⁠www.innoboost.com⁠ for more insights and circularity tools. Drop us a note if you want to share your story via info@innoboost.com.

Credits

This is a podcast by Innoboost | Creating profit to be proud of.

• Hosts: Sandra Horlings and Christiaan Kraaijenhagen.

• Production & Edit: Malou van der Starre.

• Sound: Joris van Grunsven, Studio Takt.