We are excited to be introducing our new 250g bags to the world, with a fresh and playful design that is guaranteed to brighten up any counter top or retail shelf. These bags are 100% LPDE 4 Recyclable, which means they can be fully recycled in the ROI by dispensing at large supermarkets and approved civic amenity centres (for more information visit mywaste.ie). This it the only truly 100% recyclable material available for coffee bags in the ROI. Another thing to note is that we are making a move away from single colour for ground or whole. Instead you can now find our bags colour themed for different origins which will be marked for ground or whole. 5 new colours in total.
You may be asking yourself: “Why go recyclable instead of compostable?”, and that is a very valid question with a long winded answer—that we will try our best to answer in this blog.
At the heart of who we are we are a Specialty Coffee company who only brings in coffees that are rated 85+. With that ethos comes countless hours roasting, cupping, and traveling to origin to bring Ireland the highest quality coffee on the market. Creating long term relationships with farmers, washing stations, and co ops in origins from around the world so that we can bring these stunning coffees into the Port of Cork directly from origin to cut the carbon footprint of our coffee by 50%. Not to mention this gives us the ability to pay the farmers, co ops, and washing stations up to 5 times more than Fair Trade prices.
With that context in mind we get to sourcing our new coffee bags. Over the past 24 months our team has brought in compostable and recyclable bag material from all around the world to try and source the greenest bag option that wouldn’t sacrifice the quality of the coffees we bring in. Creating a sustainable product is extremely important to us, but so is keeping to the ethos of who we are as a coffee brand. The reason we carry the banner “Boutique” in our name is because it is our goal to display a wide range of regions through buying micro lots, and nano lots of 85+ rated coffees that come and go from our offering list throughout the year—so it is important that we don’t sacrifice the quality of the coffee, while still going with the most sustainable option.
After 24 months of testing a number of different compostable and recyclable films we found that the compostable material that was available to us, instantly degraded the cup quality of our coffees, leaving a papery/baggy taste on all of our coffee. With the hard work that the farmers, co ops, and washing stations put into producing these 85+ coffees we felt it wasn’t fair to them have their stunning coffees on display to the world in a bag that would instantly take away from the hard work that they put into them. We are hopeful for the future of compostable material that will come along in the coming years, that creates a successful barrier to lock in freshness in a way that allows these farmers hard work to shine. Every year our team will constantly be cupping and sourcing compostable bags till we find one that does just that. Until then we believe we have found a bag that is both sustainable and gives the coffees that we bring in the ability to show off the stunning coffees that the farmers, co ops, and washing stations produce!