Green Coffee Shop Scheme

The Cambridge Food Hub invites local coffee shops, restaurants and caterers to reduce their environmental impact by participating in the ‘green coffee shop scheme’. Take delivery of local products and the Food Hub will collect your spent coffee grounds for recycling.

How does it work?

The Cambridge Food Hub is committed to reducing the environmental impact of food through better coordination of the supply chain. The Green Coffee Shop Scheme shows how we can achieve circular systems through collaboration between local businesses.

The Food Hub will deliver a range of local products to your coffee shop or cafe. At the same time, we will collect a caddie of used coffee grounds and take them either to biobean for recycling into Coffee Logs, or to Waterland Organics to be used as a soil improver. We will provide you with the caddies as part of the scheme. The idea is that the collection of waste products is efficient, as it happens at the same time as goods are being delivered.

Why get involved in the Green Coffee Shop Scheme?

Go Green

Buying products that are made locally reduces the emissions associated with food transport, as well as supporting local businesses, many of which are small or medium sized. The Food Hub also has an emphasis on products that are made sustainably, are plant-based or use seasonal or surplus produce. Recycling coffee grounds reduces waste to landfill and, depending on their destination, will provide a carbon-neutral energy source or improve yields for a local organic farm.

Save Money

Removing bulky material from your general waste for recycling should reduce the cost of your commercial waste collection bill. We are in discussions with the council to see if regular participants in the scheme could get a further reduction on their waste collection bill.

Get Promoted

We’ll provide point of sale materials to let your customers know you’re being green and promote your business throughout the summer months. The Green Coffee Shop Scheme has already been promoted in local newspapers (the Cambridge Independent and Cambridge News), on local radio, and most recently featured in a BBC Look East segment.