Conscious Living
Packaging
At Whistlin’ Cup, we are committed to the journey of caring for the only earth we have, and a journey it will be. The search for packaging took some time as we encountered many manufacturing companies making poorly supported claims.
Our packaging needed to meet three primary requirements:
-
Protect the quality of the coffee from staling.
-
Allow for natural CO2 off-gassing.
-
Reduce trash production through composting, biodegrading and recycling.
Our search brought us to Biotre. Excluding the tin tie and degassing valve the bags are 60% compostable and the remaining 40% is a plastic which includes an additive that allows it to biodegrade in 5-10 years. We opted to stamp our bags to avoid any additional, non-compostable adhesive labels.
Options for compostable coffee bags that are currently available on the market are not yet ideal for the home composter. We settled on Biotre because they, like us, continue to work on more environmentally sustainable solutions for packaging. As we grow at Whistlin’ Cup we will revisit ways to model integrity and transparency when it comes to our value of not trashing our world. In the meantime, we recommend commercially composting your bags or composting at home with the understanding the liner will take additional time to break down. Alternatively, you could remove the liner from the compost pile and discard knowing it will continue to biodegrade.
Ethos
It requires expert knowledge, attention, and hard work to grow high grade specialty coffee. To respect this process with integrity we source only the highest quality coffees from around the world. We like to think local and support local. To us this means caring for our local community in Pennsylvania AND caring about the people and land the coffee is grown on in various countries around the world. Our coffee source boasts direct partnerships with farmers around the world ensuring farmers are paid 50%-100% more than fair trade prices. Integrity means supporting living wages locally and “locally” throughout our supply chain. This partnership ensures a full circle feedback loop where farmers and buyers can collaborate on education and planning for future coffee harvests, ensuring more sustainable and higher quality crops for many more years.