For the love of coffee, friends, music and reuse

Sponsor highlight: Tandem Coffee Roasters

UPSTREAM is proud to partner with Tandem Coffee Roasters of Portland, Maine as one of our corporate sponsors in 2021. We found each other through 1% for the Planet, which connects mission-driven businesses to environmental non-profits – and we look forward to rolling the reuse movement forward together. We asked Will Pratt, Tandem’s founder, to tell us more about their story and their commitment to making throw-away go away.

Tell us about the Tandem journey. Why did you start, and where do you hope to go from here? 

My wife, Kathleen, and I started Tandem back in 2012 out of a basic love of hosting. Wherever we've lived, our house is always a gathering space. We love bringing people into our home for cooking, drinking and jamming. Having our own little cafe was really just an extension of that. Since opening, the business has grown in so many fun and organic ways. We opened a bustling bakery with our dear friend Briana in 2014, and we've started some funky subscriptions pairing coffee with both film and records. It feels like we are supposed to have a grandiose plan for the future but we just don't. We like being small and really enjoy honing our craft – making Tandem a better experience for staff, customers and vendors every day.  

What were you doing to encourage reusables before COVID hit? Have you been able to do anything on that front since? 

Since day one we had always offered a 25¢ discount when someone brought in a reusable cup. This is a pretty mainstream incentive but mostly ineffectual: despite the discount, 70% of our drinks were still being served in single-use cups. 

In April of 2019 we turned that policy on its head and dropped all of our drink prices by 25¢ – instead charging that 25¢ for single use cups. Taking a cue from the local grocery store clerks who ask if you need a bag, we would ask each customer if they needed a cup in hopes that having that conversation would get them to change their habits. 

It worked! Before COVID we were down to serving only about 45% of our drinks in single-use cups. We had plans to have a couple other cafes in town get on board. They were all going to launch on March 15th, 2020, but the world came to a shrieking halt that weekend and those plans are now on hold. Since we reopened in June, we have been serving 100% of our drinks in single-use cups as well as using a lot more packaging for takeaway bakery items. It's unsettling. As of February, we have started serving drinks in reusable cups again. It feels great. 

How would you like to see reuse working on the coffee scene?

There are so many ways that reuse can be applied to the coffee scene, it's just going to take a willingness to give it a shot and lots of ingenuity. Cups are obviously the first and probably easiest thing to go. Hopefully this will inspire a reusable revolution around to-go foods as well. The options are endless. We're always trying to figure out how to incorporate reusables into selling whole bean coffee to retail and wholesale customers as well. 

Why did you decide to partner with UPSTREAM?

We became a member 1% for the Planet in early 2020. We were really hoping to partner with a non-profit that was devoted to getting rid of single use products like we were. UPSTREAM's profile was sent to us by our 1% representative. They were exactly what we were looking for. Over the last two years, we were making some real headway in getting rid of single-use items at Tandem. The coronavirus put the brakes on much of that progress. Before we even closed in March, one of our first solutions to dealing with the spread of the virus was to stop accepting or serving anything in reusable cups. That was the first of many wasteful concessions we had to make that were off-mission but conducive to the new way of operating during a pandemic. So, we knew that while we were temporarily not able to live up to our environmental ideals, we could support an organization that was still fighting the good fight.

Who would you love to see walk in the door of one of Tandem’s locations someday and order a coffee (in a reusable mug, of course!)? And why?

That's an easy one! David Byrne. Aside from being a huge fan of his music, he has also spearheaded or been a part of so many projects that, on their own, would be the singular crowning achievement for the average artist. After each of these amazing projects he moves on and begins to work on the next one that is always somehow more impressive than the last. I try to model my business after that way of thinking – just because something is working and successful, doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. Keep doing what makes you happy, what you find interesting, and if you are excited enough about it, you can probably get enough other folks excited about it, too. 

Any special thoughts or wishes for 2021?

I just want to be able to hug someone who isn't in my "pod." If that can happen by the end of the year, then 2021 will be alright.