The couple’s visit shed light on how they found an interesting way to utilize used coffee grounds rather than just throw them away after brewing, thereby removing potentially tons of waste from landfills.
How did you get started?
Like most of you, we drink coffee every morning and are left with a dirty coffee filter containing wet coffee grounds that need to be discarded and washed away, often creating a nice smelling mess. As an experiment, we started accumulating this “waste” daily in our home and reached four pounds of coffee grounds in one month.
We couldn’t stop thinking about all the coffee grounds thrown away in coffee shops and asked ourselves: “What if this waste is not really meant to be waste?” This was when we had the idea to repurpose the grounds into cups, and began researching how to make this idea come true.
What is your vision?
Our mission is to make an impact in society and change people’s mindsets of how waste is seen. We aim to reduce the coffee waste that otherwise gets thrown into the landfills and to reduce single-use plastic and paper products. We see Coffee Kreis not only as a major player in sustainable consumer product goods, but also as incorporating a logistics-driven tech platform that will facilitate how waste is managed.
What about the name of your business — Does it have any special meaning?
Kreis means “Circle” in German, and resembles our circular economy model based on the regeneration of natural materials.
Where are you based?
We are based in Florida, the United States, however, all of our operations — from the recycling to the manufacturing process — are done in Colombia.
Are your products available online only or will we be able to buy in stores as well?
Our goal is to have our products at every coffee shop, retail store, hotel, and restaurant not only for these businesses to reduce their single-use plastic and paper product consumption, but also to give customers the opportunity to purchase the products in person.
What sets you apart from other companies looking to use/sell reusable products?
We believe our product is unique in its characteristics and material composition. Something we really like about our cups is their natural brown color that comes from the coffee, as well as their coffee aroma which will take your coffee experience to the next level.
Have you considered next steps/timeline of release?
Currently, we are doing some lab testing to get a unique and perfectly engineered product to market. We should be able to start delivering our products before the end of this year.
For more information about Coffee Kreis, visit coffeekreis.com.
