For our third interview in the KeepCup Sustainable Champions series, we catch up with the brothers behind PS Coffee Roasters in Naas, County Kildare
Give us the low-down on PS Coffee Roasters
We’re a small company founded by two brothers (Simon and Peter McCormack) who have an extreme obsession and passion for coffee and sustainable practice. Starting out in 2015, we had very little money but a strong confidence that our vision for an ethical and sustainable coffee roastery and cafe could work.
We’re happy with our progress so far. Last year we upgraded to a W15A Giesen coffee roaster and currently employ over ten amazing staff members who share our vision.Â
How have you adapted your roastery to be more sustainable?
We offer reusable containers for our wholesale customers and use them for the coffee we roast for our cafe. We also give customers the option of reusing the recyclable Dutch Pack bags we currently package our beans in – the company is CO2 neutral and offsets its carbon footprint by planting trees. Our latest project is to move to compostable packaging for our retail bags.
Where we can, we also look to work with green suppliers. Most of our bean sourcing is done with Nordic Approach because of their phenomenal attitude towards sustainable farming. They ensure farmers are paid well (even if it’s been a bad year for crops) and focus on long-lasting relationships.
How much pressure is on the business to be green?
There is pressure to be green but I enjoy that; I say bring it on! The more pressure the better, it will force us all to improve.
KeepCup has a vision of a disposable-cup free world. Is it possible?
I respect KeepCup’s vision of a disposable-cup free world – I would love to see it happen.
We’re considering running a pilot program where sit-in cups would be replaced with KeepCups (without the lid). A shocking number of people request takeaway cups instead of china and I’d hope that this would eliminate a lot of disposables. Eventually, it would be great to set up a system where customers can drop off reusable cups and we’ll wash them ready for the next use.
Going completely reusable will be hard as cafes will face turning away customers who don’t have a cup. We can encourage to a point but unless the cafe is in the position to turn away customers, owners will have to make a tough decision. If there is a solution, I’d love to hear it. In the meantime, we reward our customers who bring a KeepCup by double stamping their loyalty card.
