Connecting Grounds is a startup that was launched in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city, under the adverse circumstances of the Covid pandemic. The company may still be small, but it has the potential to make its mark in the coffee waste upcycling movement.
It requires considerable confidence and a great deal of curiosity to start a business in times of great isolation and uncertainty, and Giulia Francesca Marchetti, co-founder of Connecting Grounds, is quite confident in herself, her fellow entrepreneurs and the future:
"Me and four other people, which I did not know, responded to a question on a Facebook group, where a woman wanted to do something with spent coffee grounds but didn't quite know how to make a business out of it and was looking for some external help," says Giulia. "Me and the others found that super exciting and commented on her post. That led to lots of meetings and brainstorming sessions, and yes, that's how it all started. I stumbled into it more by chance."
Connecting Grounds was eventually founded in 2021. Of the 5 original founding members, 2 remain: Giulia (CEO) and Klaudia Laczi (COO). They are supported by a business advisor and numerous interns. "Interns are essential for us at the moment; we couldn't do it without them," says Giulia.
What surprised Giulia and her friends most about spent coffee grounds was the high nutritional value that remains after the coffee has been brewed. In light of this, it was only natural to wonder how these valuable nutrients could be used as a food additive. Fortunately, there were already some inspiring pioneers such as Kaffe Bueno in Denmark or GroundUp Eco-Ventures in Canada to look to for inspiration.
Something else that was very important initially for founding the company was the local culture: "We were very blessed that we started this company in Denmark. The country is very open to startups and the entire community around entrepreneurship. There's also a lot of focus on sustainability. This all together helped us tremendously from the very beginning," says Giulia.
Due to the high level of competition in the food sector, the Connecting Grounds founding team quickly discarded the idea of producing consumer products such as fiber or protein bars. After numerous tests and devouring a great deal of scientific literature, it was determined that the better strategy was to produce food ingredients whose final use could be decided by food manufacturers themselves.
Finally, Coffee Base was developed. Coffee Base is a little miracle bag with a wide range of possible uses in ready-made and snack products, whether as an addition of fiber, protein, caffeine, color or coffee flavor; it is also ideally suited as an ingredient in gluten-free flours. "We have tested our Coffee Base in baked products, like bread or focaccia, pastries and much more. Based on those results, we built profiles that we send to potential customers and say 'Look, these are the possibilities; try it out'," says Giulia.
Most companies that upcycle coffee grounds first extract the valuable coffee oil. It is increasingly being used in skin and sun protection creams, due to its skin-protecting properties, but is also suitable for the production of biodiesel, for example. Connecting Grounds skips this extraction process in favour of keeping the oils. As Giulia explains: "The reason for it is because we see so much value in keeping the grounds as they are. If we take away the oils, we are losing a lot of the aromas and a lot of the properties of the final base. We try not to process to the grounds much which, of course, comes with a lot of challenges like the cleaning of the machines, for example."
As is the case, for anyone who upcycles spent coffee grounds, the drying process is one of the biggest hurdles for Giulia and Klaudia to overcome. They have meanwhile found suitable drying equipment options from both Danish and German machine manufacturers, but the high upfront investment costs have, for the time being, forced them to dry their coffee grounds in an industrial bakery oven.
Grinding the coffee grounds is another hurdle as the particles, which are only 500 micrometers in size, tend to get stuck everywhere in the grinder and hinder the grinding process; but the team is now closer to solving this problem.
Circularity is of course a top priority at Connecting Grounds. The basic idea is to collect the coffee grounds from partners like Europa Kaffe & Te and Cafe Nifty, process them, and sell them to the same partners for various uses in cookies, muffins, and other treats. Roasters are also approaching the start-up, as they are increasingly being asked by customers: "What do I do with all those coffee grounds?" "We see an increasing shift here in Denmark. Consumers don't want waste going to be disposed anymore," says Giulia. "And that's exactly what we want to see too: waste isn't waste anymore! And the great thing, at least in our case, is that everyone involved is working hand in hand. That's very motivating."
At Connecting Grounds, "taste" is actually made from "waste"! Up to 15% of a baked product’s total ingredient volume can be substituted with Coffee Base, which is a quantity that can definitely generate business if the sales volume is high enough.
But before the conversion process can begin, the coffee grounds must first be collected. This is currently still a matter for Giulia and Klaudia to solve. Currently, they collect the coffee grounds from their partners every third day. They are always stored there in cool conditions. From Connecting Grounds, after drying and a few "processing secrets", the transformed coffee grounds are then returned to the partners as Coffee Base.
Giulia is aware that such collection logistics cannot be maintained forever. "The next step will be trying a 'reverse logistics', which means that we will involve our partners' suppliers in the collection of the coffee grounds as far as possible. At the end of a tour, they will deliver it to us, which will save us a lot of driving. As these are food trucks that have to guarantee food safety for all their cargo, we now have to convince the distributors that coffee grounds are not contaminating waste, but raw material for new food or food ingredients. However, this rethinking process will still take a while," Giulia is certain.
In addition to this business with "coffee grounds producers", Connecting Grounds also supplies smaller companies such as bakeries and a vegan burger manufacturer that adds the Coffee Base to its plant-based patties.
Of course, such a small customer base is not enough to make big leaps, but Connecting Grounds has a good foundation, and there are plenty of ideas for expansion and the level of recognition is steadily increasing. If the tumultuous landscape for small business start-ups could be compared to the wind on the Danish North Sea coast, the small company with big plans has a port in the storm for a while longer; Connecting Grounds is financially secure until October thanks to Innofounder, a start-up grant. After that, the entrepreneurial winds are likely to get a little rougher, but Giulia and Klaudia are already working on “wind turbines”, figuratively speaking, that will withstand even the strongest gusts and harness the very uncertainty that sustainability ventures are built for.
