Extracting value from our morning brew.

A sustainable process to help coffee shops upcycle grounds into high-value products

The Opportunity

Canadians drink a lot of coffee. Every day Canada’s coffee shops create enough used coffee grounds to fill 80 tractor trailers. This ‘waste’ creates three issues: it’s expensive to get rid of; it generates greenhouse gas emissions in landfill; and it holds tremendous untapped nutritional value.

The Challenge

RFINE developed an innovative process that can be integrated right at the source of the coffee grounds – the coffee shops. Their unique solution conveniently collects and processes the used grounds so they can be used for high value ingredients like cocoa replacements and feed ingredients. But a solution is only a solution if someone uses it. The challenge was to conduct real-world pilot tests to draw in industrial partners.

NPC’s Solution

NPC provided RFINE $250,000 through the Proof of Concept Program to support the real-world testing of the technology in commercial coffee shops. At time of publication, these trials are ongoing, proving that RFINE’s process can save the industry partners money, while helping them achieve their carbon reduction targets.