Upstream is proud to partner with Huskee, a company that began in Australia producing sustainably made reusable coffee cups – and has since expanded into zero waste systems that serve businesses and consumers in the UK and US as well. Through their cup exchange program, HuskeeSwap, and end-of-life recycling program, HuskeeLoop, their mission is to ensure delivery of the highest possible impact with the lowest possible footprint, ultimately eliminating the need for single-use products.

We recently sat down with Partnership Manager Chad Buxton to learn a little more about this innovative reuse business and how they are changing and growing to serve the fast-moving reuse space.

Tell us a little more about each of your systems: HuskeeCup, HuskeeSwap, and HuskeeLoop.

Huskee started in 2017 as a Kickstarter, to see if we could solve a problem through design. Each year, the production of coffee creates millions of tonnes of coffee husk waste. We started with the question “What if we could turn that waste into something beautiful?” — and the HuskeeCup was born. Through award-winning iconic design, we created a reusable cup that is both sustainable and made for the industry.

But we didn’t stop there, as our purpose is not to simply sell reusable cups but to solve problems. HuskeeSwap was created primarily to help cafes and restaurants integrate a convenient and desirable reusable cup model into their service.

The HuskeeSwap system works at the base level that once you have bought a cup, you can simply swap it. No tech or phones are required — which is great for removing some potentially significant barriers to use. While this is BYO at its essence, swapping means advantages like not having to clean your cup, swapping for any size, and cafes can use the cups in pre-ordering systems. It scales well due to the cups and system primarily designed with cafes in mind.

The optional HuskeeSwap App allows useful features: you can store your cup at a cafe if you don’t want to carry it around, or even borrow a cup in case you forgot yours. Cafes can opt-in to loyalty features to further incentivize reuse for their customers. It’s all about choice — use the features you want. The network is now 1,200 cafes globally (including the US and Canada), and growing.

Every Huskee product range contains recycled content, a significant way in which we can participate in the circular economy. The HuskeeLoop program began as an R&D discovery, with the goal of repurposing end-of-life HuskeeCups using commonly available equipment — and importantly without adding virgin material to the process.

We succeeded and launched in 2022, with our first new product the Huskee Dogbowl, made out of 100% HuskeeCup. Customers can swap old cups for free at any HuskeeSwap site, which we call “infinite ownership.” We look forward to expanding and localizing this program in future years.

What are some of the biggest trends in reuse you’ve noticed in the last few years?

It is exciting to see many new reuse companies in recent years coming to fruition, trying out their business models, and accelerating the opportunity to eliminate single-use. It is a tricky problem to solve and scale, but there is a lot of effort going into solving these problems. We are also seeing increased interest and activity for reuse in the corporate and education sectors.

COVID had a significant impact on reuse systems, with some requirements that were arguably unnecessary. However, the awareness of plastics and single-use issues didn’t diminish. In some ways, they were amplified during COVID, with the heavy reliance on single-use items like masks and gloves. Now that we are on the other side of a global pandemic, many are seeing there is a better way than throw-away, and it is exciting to see policies and regulations around the world being implemented to support this.

What have been some of your biggest challenges, and how have you surmounted them?

Our biggest challenge with HuskeeSwap has been trying to understand and address the intention-action gap present with reuse behavior. Reuse systems must try to make reuse as convenient and cost-effective as possible relative to the single-use status quo. It is hard to break habits and form new ones. It is also hard to get buy-in from both customers and businesses implementing reuse, so developing those relationships over time is important.

We have approached these issues by minimizing our tech barriers, trying to create highly desirable products and systems that financially benefit both business and consumers, and to try to provide choices wherever possible. For example, with HuskeeSwap, we eliminated monthly subscription fees or ongoing costs to users and businesses. With high cost-of-living pressures and many people having multiple subscriptions for entertainment services, music, and more; it is hard to ask users to “subscribe” for their daily coffee.

It is also hard to be the early adopters and innovator cafes or businesses. Cafes are time-poor and simply want to know what works or is best for them. With reuse, there is no one-size-fits-all, and more importantly integration takes time and commitment. Huskee is focused on our new case studies page to give examples of how and why different sectors have applied Huskee in real life to give that confidence as well as developing new resources in our HuskeeSwap toolkit to support businesses on their journey with reuse.

What’s next for Huskee?

Huskee is busy rolling out our new product ranges HuskeeRenew and HuskeeSteel. We are excited about these new products and the materials they are made from. With any Huskee product, our ethos is to design quality, premium products that integrate best sustainability practices and circular economy principles.

We are also very busy with our next round of certification as a B-Corp certified company. It is important that we are transparent on our claims, which B-Corp certification allows us to do. It also provides us a great framework and opportunity to review our operations to assess where we can focus our efforts next to be more sustainable.

Finally, we are very busy developing another reuse model that will be complementary to HuskeeSwap. This effort is to help service-specific sectors that historically we have been unable to provide options and to expand the choices we can give businesses interested in reuse. With all things, Huskee is committed to “make waste beautiful.”

Find out more about HuskeeSwap today and reach out to partnership@huskee.co to start a conversation.

If you are a reuse business interested in partnering with Upstream, contact julie@upstreamsolutions.org.