🛒 The Check-Out: Helena Hills, TrueStart Coffee
+ 5 cool climate events + what's in our basket - Wildfarmed, Coconut Collab + more...
Happy Thursday! Welcome to The Check-Out - your weekly dose of climate x consumer goods inspiration, and your discovery box of products and events the Following the Footprints team are loving this week. It’s great to have you here.
The green room of the Queen Elizabeth Conference Hall in London is a strange place to learn about a very early Bristol-based coffee brand. Yet, in 2019, that’s where someone-who-shall-not-be-named (because I can’t remember who) told me about TrueStart. Since then, I’ve LOVED following the progress of this refreshingly fun, caring and couple-run business. You’d hope your coffee brand is full of energy, but TrueStart really knocks it out the park.
After we chat to Helena, we’ll share what the Following the Footprints team has loved and consumed this week and 5 Climate x Consumer Goods events coming up. Let’s dig in…
> Brand Spotlight
🎙️ Behind the Brand: 6 questions with Helena Hills, CEO & Co-Founder of TrueStart Coffee
👉 Hello! We’d love the non-LinkedIn lowdown on who you are and why TrueStart Coffee exists.
Love the casual format of that, well I’m Helena, co-founder of TrueStart Coffee with my husband Simon and we make delicious, healthy coffee to make you feel amazing.
I know it sounds really cheesy but we honestly do exist on this earth to spread massive positive energy and our coffee is our vehicle for that! We want our coffee to make people feel amazing so they can go into their day the most unlocked version of themselves.
It was actually at our first sampling event at a running race in Taunton where we discovered our coffee, which is caffeine regulated and tested for health benefits, could do that! Everyone came back after the end of the race and said “woah that’s PB coffee” “I feel amazing” and if people can say that in the middle of their 10k race in a soggy field in Somerset then we thought we really are onto something..
👉 Coffee supply chains are always a hot topic - how are you managing yours responsibly?
Great question, Simon and I need to sleep at night and we always strive to be good people and make good decisions in our business and our lives so our supply chain was always going to be something we cared about!
We are a B Corp certified company and that means our business is rigorously tested to meet a high standard of sustainability, ethics, transparency and accountability. Our supply chain is something we’ve worked hard to get and protect and we’re proud to say our farmers get paid above the fairtrade wage. We have also chosen to co-roast, one of the big factors of this decision was that this site air-roasts, which uses 40% less energy than traditional roasting methods!
When it comes to our packaging we made a big switch last year from non-recyclable paper bags, that looked recyclable because they were made with craft paper but actually had an un-recyclable laminate inside them to beautiful curb-side recyclable bags!
We are also working on releasing some maps and locations of the farms next year, transparency is really important in coffee and we want to pull back the veil for our customers and continue to be open for them and so if people have other demands then always let us know.
👉 All challenger brands are very resource constrained. Are there any handy workarounds / tricks you’ve found to reduce your impact on a budget?
At TrueStart, one of our values is to 'do a lot with a little'! We believe that how we make people feel is just as important as the coffee we serve, and we like to focus on quality over quantity in everything we do. Our emphasis on meaningful, high-quality interactions guides our approach to both customer engagement and environmental impact.
One example is through our supplier relations. We use independent and local suppliers where possible, such as for our printing needs. While they may not be the cheapest quote initially, we find they save us time and money in the long run, and reduce road miles for delivery as well as get better customer service and fairer prices on projects that need a faster turnaround. We also find that type of partner will often even suggest ways to save us money so a tip of mine would be to pull on local relationships and suppliers as they’ll help with your social and environmental impact.
We’ve also just moved into our new office and by repurposing old furniture that was in there, doing a team painting day and being resourceful with old materials we’ve not only saved thousands of pounds but we’ve not bought a whole bunch of new stuff for it. Plus, we’ve donated the stuff that we didn’t need to local nurseries and community centres, again making an impact in our local community.
However, it’s important to point out that it’s really hard as a small business to do sustainable things cheaply - there are few, if any, disincentives for the big companies to make better decisions and until that comes into place, unfortunately saving money and living sustainably don’t always marry up.
👉 Your website mentions your journey from calculating your carbon emissions, to realising you want to go beyond a Carbon Negative label (great news!) and including more focus on biodiversity by December 2024. How is this going?
We know that the language around “Carbon Negative” is quite cloudy due to some large brands using it in a destructive way and, as we state on our website, although we technically are carbon negative as we offset 120% of the carbon we emit, we want to change that statement bring our impact closer to home.
We have just gone through our B Corp re-certification process and our B Corp Lead in the team, Jess, is currently looking at a long term partner in the biodiversity space in the UK who we can work with and grow with from 2025 onwards.
On a side note, we’ve also been really working hard on our social impact this year. We have worked with national charities like Magic Breakfast (and plan to donate over 50,00 breakfasts to kids facing hunger this year) as well as local charities like Marmalade Trust or supporting the amazing Mental Health Swims to continue running nationwide or raising awareness around neurodiversity through my talks at businesses - we really do try to have an impact across the board, both socially and environmentally.
👉 Ok, magic wand time; if we could grant you three wishes to improve the impact of the coffee industry, what would they be?
For consumers to realise how far their coffee came to get to their cup (I forget this sometimes) I think this would make people, us included, to not take their coffee for granted when they think of the epic journey it’s been on
For bigger companies to invest in growing new species of coffee that don’t need to be grown in such special climates / locations - this would be game changing for the environment and is something we’re planning on doing
This one sounds really boring.. but fairer taxation on offshore companies - the biggest players in the coffee industry don’t get fairly taxed in the UK because they’re registered elsewhere, this would generate millions of pounds that could go back into essential services at home.
👉 Finally - We’d love some recommendations; one climate-related resource, one person to follow online and one other consumer brand that’s killing it!
RESOURCE: Tough call but it’s got to be either the YIKES Podcast or following the Rave On For the Avon story. The team on YIKES makes quite scary subjects, like the climate emergency, digestible and gently shows you how to make a difference! Then Rave on For the Avon is actually a docu-film all about campaigning for a cleaner river, if you ever get the chance to go to a showing it’s an absolute must.
PERSON: Nat Brereton - she is a local Bristol creator who is literally a bundle of joy to watch, whilst also sharing important pieces of content about political, environmental and social issues! So if you want someone that will make you laugh whilst addressing the important bits - follow our girl Nat!
BRAND: There’s so many amazing brands out there that we’re obsessed with at the moment but if I had to pick one at this very second it would be Passenger. I just did a haul from their website to upgrade my winter wardrobe and the quality is immense, the customer service was lovely and the impact they’re having on the environment is awesome!
A huge thanks to Helena for jumping into the hot seat today!
> In Our Basket
🔎 What we loved and consumed this week:
From Ruby in London: I’ve been loving the Coconut Collab Mango & Passionfruit Coconut Yog pots. Great for on the go with a banana when I’ve been in the office or out and about at events. I’ve rediscovered my love for coconut yog, and now I have my eye on their pud range…
From Ellie in London: Vinted came to my rescue last week in finding gaiters and waterproof trousers for my West Highland Way walk. Turns out I didn’t need them with sunshine and no sight of rain for three straight days (unheard of in Scotland), but at least I was prepared and they were secondhand!
From Laura in Manchester: I treated myself to a Marks & Spencer (I know, fancy right?!) white loaf made with Wildfarmed flour. Tasted so good! Regenerated my breakfast routine.
> Weekly Events Roundup!
📆 5 Consumer Goods x Climate Events:
Browse 20+ upcoming consumer x climate events, and submit yours.
17th October - Sustainable Futures Live: Brewing Innovation with the Founder of Grind
Organisers: Sustainable Ventures
Location: Waterloo, London, UK
22nd-23rd October - Net Zero Festival
Organisers: BusinessGreen
Location: Business Design Centre, London, UK
24th October - Unlocking Circularity for PET Packaging in the USA: 2040 system modeling and recommendations
Organisers: Sustainable Packaging Coalition
Location: Virtual
24th October - Mission Market
Organisers: Mission Kitchen
Location: New Covent Garden Market, London, UK
29th October - Mitigating Scope 3 Emissions in the Food & Agriculture Sector
Organisers: Environmental Defense Fund, OnePointFive
Location: Virtual
That’s it for today!
Know a brand we should spotlight next? Let Leone know!
Have links that can make the team learn or laugh? Share them with us, we might just share them in The Check-Out next week.
Hungry for more? You’ll see us on Monday! That’s when we suit up and get serious, digging into a topic that is guaranteed to make you look smart at standup.
Much love,
Team FTF
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