Whelk Builds Corporate Caps With a Biodegradable Brim

Whelk started as three Sherbrooke university students selling embroidered caps to friends and family, donating a slice of every sale to ocean cleanup nonprofits, until one of those nonprofits told founder Justin Bastarache that his own plastic brims would eventually break down into the same microplastics they were pulling off beaches. Three years of research later, Whelk launched a biodegradable brim called Blutech and opened its own factory in Sherbrooke because no dedicated hat maker was left standing in Eastern Canada. Corporate buyers who ask where their branded gear actually comes from tend to get a straight answer here, all the way down to the stitching.

Meet Justin Bastarache, the maker behind Whelk

Justin Bastarache and two friends started Whelk in Sherbrooke, Quebec while they were business students, selling caps to friends and family and pledging a portion of every sale to ocean cleaning efforts. Whelk’s own account of its origins puts the start in 2018, as a student side project. A separate page on its site and a 2024 La Presse feature both date the formal founding to 2019, when Bastarache and his co-founders were studying management at Universite de Sherbrooke. After their first year of donations, a Vancouver ocean nonprofit thanked them for the check and then pointed out the flaw in the product: the plastic visor on every cap they sold would eventually shed into the same microplastics the nonprofit pulled from the water. Bastarache spent the next three years testing alternatives. Hemp, bamboo and rattan all broke down faster, but they cracked and wore out, which just meant buying more caps sooner. He landed instead on an additive that lets a normal plastic brim biodegrade at the end of its life without losing shape or flexibility. Whelk launched its first Blutech cap in 2023 and Bastarache is now the company’s sole owner.

What Whelk makes

Whelk builds a compact lineup of dad hats, trucker hats, sport caps, baseball caps, a structured cap they call the Cliff Hat, and knit beanies, all fitted with the Blutech brim. Baseball and Cliff Hat styles run on GOTS certified organic cotton, the trucker hat blends recycled and virgin cotton, and the beanie is an OEKO-TEX certified merino wool blend. Every cap moves through Whelk’s own factory in twenty separate manual steps, from cutting panels on steel-rule dies to stitching the Blutech brim to heat blocking the crown into its final shape. The brand also sells a blank build-your-own cap for buyers who want to add their own decoration. Every piece carries what Whelk calls its Sh*t Happens Warranty, a lifetime guarantee against defects in materials and workmanship.

The values built into every cap

Whelk does not outsource production. It founded its own factory, Pipo Canada, in Quebec after finding that decades of offshoring had wiped out dedicated hat manufacturing across Eastern Canada, and the shop runs as a unionized, Canadian-regulated shop rather than an offshore contract line. The Blutech brim itself has been tested under ASTM standards: in a seawater test, treated nylon thread reached 39 percent biodegradation over 250 days versus 0 percent untreated, and in a simulated landfill test, treated plastic reached 79 percent biodegradation over 1,779 days versus 0 percent untreated, according to Whelk’s own published results. Whelk is a member of 1% for the Planet and donates 1 percent of sales to ocean cleanup nonprofits, the same practice that started the company. It also publishes a page it calls F*ck Greenwashing, where it lists where its own supply chain still falls short rather than only the parts that sound good.

How Whelk works with corporate teams

Whelk already leans corporate. Trade publication ASI Media reported in 2025 that about 85 percent of Whelk’s business now comes from promotional and corporate buyers rather than direct retail, and quoted Bastarache saying he wants Whelk to represent what he calls cleaner, more thoughtful promotional merchandise. Because Pipo Canada owns its own factory floor, Whelk’s team says it can run small test batches or scale up production without the rigid minimums that come with importing overseas, adjusting to real order volume rather than a factory’s fixed schedule. The same factory also produces unionized blank headwear for the wider promotional products industry alongside Whelk’s own finished caps, so branding and decoration are already part of its everyday production line. For logo placement, colourways, and order-specific quotes, that conversation still runs through a direct conversation with the Whelk team.

Three ways to gift Whelk

• Onboarding kits. A blank build-your-own cap in organic cotton, ready for a new hire’s first day of branded gear.
• Client thank-you gifts. The Cliff Hat or baseball cap in GOTS organic cotton, a clean, unisex pick for a relationship you want to keep.
• Event favours. The OEKO-TEX merino beanie for a conference, trade show, or any outdoor gathering that runs into cold weather.
• Holiday boxes. The trucker hat, built from recycled and virgin cotton, as a lighter add-on next to a bigger seasonal gift.

Frequently asked questions

Is Whelk made in Canada?

Yes. Whelk owns and operates its own factory, Pipo Canada, in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and every cap is cut, sewn, and blocked there rather than imported. The company built the factory itself after finding that dedicated hat manufacturing had disappeared from Eastern Canada.

What makes the Blutech brim different?

Blutech is an additive mixed into the plastic brim that lets it biodegrade at the end of its life instead of breaking down into permanent microplastics. Whelk’s own ASTM-based testing found treated material reached 79 percent biodegradation in a simulated landfill over 1,779 days, versus 0 percent for untreated plastic.

Can Whelk handle a corporate order?

Reporting from trade publication ASI Media puts about 85 percent of Whelk’s current business in promotional and corporate orders already, and the company says owning its own factory floor lets it run smaller batches without the rigid minimums an overseas importer would require. Order specifics and lead times are worth confirming directly for your volume.

Are Whelk’s materials certified?

Several are. The baseball and Cliff Hat styles use GOTS certified organic cotton and the beanie uses an OEKO-TEX certified merino wool blend. Whelk is also a member of 1% for the Planet, donating 1 percent of sales to ocean cleanup nonprofits.

Whelk turned an uncomfortable conversation with a nonprofit into a brim that biodegrades and a factory that proves Eastern Canada can still make a hat. For a corporate buyer, that means a cap with a traceable supply chain and a warranty that outlasts the usual swag drawer.