Caffe Inc. was founded in 2021 by Evaluna Márquez Salazar, from Costa Rica with a passion for sustainability and circular solutions. Growing up in Costa Rica, Evaluna witnessed firsthand the environmental toll of conventional agriculture from pesticide use to deforestation. These early experiences planted the seed for her future mission: to turn waste into value and protect the planet.
While pursuing her Master’s in Energy Science at Utrecht University, Evaluna discovered that only 20% of the coffee bean is used to brew your cup of coffee. The remaining 80% is discarded, despite being rich in valuable components. Realizing the potential of coffee waste, and seeing no solution in place for coffee waste processing in the Netherlands, Evaluna founded Caffe Inc. in Amsterdam.
From coffee oil for personal care and coffee blocks for biobased materials, to natural colorants for printing and textiles, the company is turning coffee waste into a resource that can replace polluting materials.
At Caffe Inc., the story starts where your coffee ends and leads to a greener future.
Caffe Inc. is on a mission to create a world without coffee waste, where we upcycle what’s already in front of us. Our vision is a world without coffee waste. Our goals is to process 10% of centralized non-residential coffee waste by 2030 in the Netherlands.
“I was shocked to realize that only 20% of the coffee bean is used to make a cup of coffee and the rest is thrown away, even though it contains so many components with tremendous value. That’s when I knew I had to do something”
– Evaluna Marquez, Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
By upcycling coffee into coffee by products, we are offering a natural and eco-friendly substitute for virgin oils and materials, contributing to a circular economy, reducing landfill waste and having a positive environmental impact as our process reduces CO2 emissions by 5 times compared to anaerobic digestion.
We work with local partners in Amsterdam to collect fresh, high-quality spent coffee grounds from hospitals, offices, and institutions across the Netherlands.
The spent grounds are stabilized and prepared for extraction.
We extract the valuable coffee oil from the spent coffee grounds using extraction technologies that do not require organic solvents or energy intensive conditions. The remaining solid fraction becomes coffee blocks, used in biomaterials and packaging.
Through ongoing innovation, we extract natural coffee colorants from the residual material, creating clean, circular alternatives to synthetic dyes for the textile and printing industries.
With our process, and ingredients, 400 kg CO2 is saved with every ton of coffee waste that we process.
At Caffe Inc. our four core values help guide us to transform coffee waste into sustainable solutions that make a real impact. They are at the heart of everything we do, helping us to innovate, grow, and create a meaningful change every day.
At Caffe Inc., Innovation drives everything we do from the very first step to when we transform coffee waste into valuable resources. We constantly want to evolve and push our boundaries.
We believe strength lies in teamwork… Our strong team with open communication drives us forward every day.
At Caffe Inc., we are dedicated to making a positive environmental impact. We believe every cup of coffee should leave a lasting impact on people, not the planet!
At Caffe Inc., we believe innovation starts with courage, that’s why we dare to do it and challenge ourselves everyday by taking big steps towards a world free of coffee Waste
Circular coffee ingredients (2023–2025)
Development and scale-up of innovative biorefinery technology to transform coffee waste into high-value ingredients for cosmetics, food and biomaterials.
Advanced circular ingredient innovation (2025–2028)
Improving the preprocessing steps, improving the product quality of our products and innovating new ingredients.
These projects are co-financed by the European Union through the Kansen voor West program.
Welcome to a new chapter in the circular economy of coffee waste.
Caffe Inc. is building the missing link between the global coffee industry and the sustainable materials of tomorrow.
We are ready to scale!
