Good News at Grind.
Bringing some bright news to lighten up January, it’s time for a little roundup of the positive impact we made on the planet in 2023.
Doing What We Do Best.
Better coffee is coffee that protects the planet instead of polluting it. We’re on a mission to change the way we drink coffee for the better—roasting coffee that’s ethically sourced from sustainable farms, making compostable coffee pods from plants, and producing a growing range of speciality coffee blends and accessories to suit the many, many ways that people like to drink their coffee.
Why We're Doing It.
As scary as it is, we’re living in a climate crisis. We think all businesses have a responsibility to give back to the planet from which they profit. So that’s what we’re doing. The mainstream coffee industry has become a major contributor to water pollution, deforestation, and decreased biodiversity, and that’s unsurprisingly not something that we want to be a part of. Instead, we want to drive positive change.
2023 in Coffee.
In 2023, our team roasted hundreds of tonnes of coffee at our London roastery. (That’s the weight of almost 40 elephants. And elephants are really, really heavy). All that coffee was sourced from producers with whom we work directly. We pay above the “Fair Trade” price in exchange for some of the world’s best coffee, instead of adhering to prices set by a third party organisation that doesn’t take into account origin or quality.
Over the years, we’ve been building lasting, collaborative relationships with the growers we work with. Almost all of these farms are family-run by people who have been growing coffee for decades, without using any harmful chemicals in the process. The reason that our coffee isn’t certified organic is that it’s difficult and costly to register for the certification, and many of the farms we work with are too small to afford it. But these farms are committed to implementing regenerative agricultural practices that don’t just lower their carbon footprint, but ensure their longevity and improve the quality of the coffee itself.
Preventing Plastic Pollution in 2023.
With our charitable foundation that we founded this year, The Better Coffee Foundation®, we recovered 43,800,000 pods’ worth of ocean-bound plastic in 2023 (that’s about 64,000 kg). In 2024, we’re expanding this project to encompass all Grind products sold, not just pods, meaning we’ll save even more plastic from the ocean this year. This is our way of undoing the plastic pollution caused by the global coffee industry.
The takeaway cups served at all our Grind locations are home-compostable and plastic-free (we’re not cleaning up our own plastic waste from the ocean—that wouldn’t make any sense). In 2023, we served 1,700,000 takeaway cups of coffee, providing a plastic alternative for millions of people drinking better coffee on-the-go.
2024 at Grind.
It's been a good year. Maybe not one that will be studied by future generations. But a great year nonetheless. 2024 is for making bigger moves towards a smaller environmental impact.
