What Makes a Perfect Circular Partner for Us?
A perfect partnership for Caffe Inc., in short, is a partner that is both a supplier of feedstock and a customer of our end product. Of all the collaborations we’ve built around our Spent Coffee Grounds, this one stands out as our first long-term two-way partnership: GRO supplies us with coffee grounds and purchases the processed grounds for mushroom cultivation, to make delicious plant-based products such as bitterballen, a traditional Dutch snack.
We process all the coffee that GRO provides us, and we’re able to provide our processed Spent Coffee Grounds to customers, including GRO. By keeping this circle local, we reduce transportation and handling, creating a more efficient and sustainable system that maximizes the value of every kilogram of coffee grounds.
Full Circle: From a Cup of Coffee to Bitterballen and Back Again
GRO’s mushrooms have always been grown on coffee grounds, true to their mission from the start. What’s changed is how far that story now reaches: with Sligro in the loop, the coffee that feeds GRO’s mushroom farms and the bitterballen served at the table can be traced back to the very same cup.
Here’s how it works today:
- GRO’s customers collect used coffee grounds from the coffee they serve.
- GRO collects and transports those grounds to Caffe Inc.
- Caffe Inc. extracts the actives and creates stable coffee blocks.
- At the mushroom farm, oyster mushrooms grow on the coffee blocks.
- GRO turns the mushrooms into delicious plant-based products like bitterballen.
Full circle: GRO’s customers serve them in the same venues where the coffee is served, bringing the cycle back to where it started
That’s what a genuine circular economy looks like: 18,000+ kg of dried spent coffee grounds supplied to date, and GRO’s bitterballen genuinely come from the coffee you drink.
Why Does This Matters to Us?
Being circular, for us, means making sure every part of the chain has somewhere to go, and that the movement between partners is circular too.
Partnerships like this one with GRO show what’s possible when circularity is followed all the way through, from raw material to a finished product people actually use. It’s a different way a supplier can become a customer, and a customer can become part of the coffee revolution. But turning our coffee blocks into something delicious took more than one partner. GRO, Renewi, Sligro and Verbruggen Paddestoelen each played a part, proving that a fully circular business model is possible when partners work together the right way.
This is only the beginning. Imagine a world where your morning coffee doesn’t end in the cup: it becomes skincare, soap, art, colorants, and even new foods and snacks along the way. Every part finds a new form, a new purpose, a new story. That’s the kind of circularity we’re working toward, one perfect partnership at a time.