Catherine Hutchins and Aniyo Rahebi On Helping Environmental Sustainability Through Waste-Free & Edible Coffee Cups

Good-Edi Founders Catherine Hutchins and Aniyo Rahebi

The Melbourne-based female founders of Good-Edi, developed the idea for an edible, truly biodegradable coffee cup after learning that 2.7 million disposable coffee cups are being sent to landfill in Australia each day.

Coffee roasteries and café owners are keen to get behind Good-Edi, as one local sustainable business said: “this is a solution that actually solves a problem”. Good-Edi was founded by Catherine Hutchins and Aniyo Rahebi in 2020. With a shared vision to make a positive difference to our planet, Good-Edi – the edible cup was born. Good-Edi ensures that all takeaway coffee cups can now be plastic-free and truly biodegradable. Made from ethically sourced, grain-based vegan ingredients, Good-Edi is a solution that is good for the planet, and good for you! Both Catherine and Aniyo have worked in the food processing and packaging industry for over 10 years.

The Good-Edi cup is like a waffle cone that can be eaten once it has fulfilled its use as a cup. Consumers not wanting to eat it can throw it in the compost or even the general rubbish, knowing it will not take more than a few weeks to break down naturally. Good-Edi started producing cups in Melbourne in June 2021. Scaling production is the next step to have a broader impact in Australia and expand to other markets.

Catherine and Aniyo Discuss their key learnings through becoming successful social entrepreneurs and the devastating environmental impact of takeaway coffee cups.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - Catherine and Aniyo, could you both share a bit about your backgrounds and what led to your work with Good-Edi and social enterprise?

[Catherine Hutchins] - My name is Catherine and I have about 11 years of global experience in the food processing and packaging industry. My paid roles have been in production management, food technology, sales and business development. Aniyo has over 12 years’ experience in food processing, packaging and the international market, and she has also held different roles across sales, development, strategic planning and business management.

We were both working for global corporations focusing on packaging. During this time, we noticed how much packaging is polluting the environment, and we decided we needed to do something about it.

We always wanted to do something that would have a positive impact, and we decided to address the issue of takeaway cups and that led us to founding Good-Edi.

How did the idea for Good-Edi come about and what challenges have you faced in creating this product?

[Aniyo Rahebi] - It has now been two years since we started Good-Edi. Catherine and I are friends and colleagues, so we used to have our coffee and lunch break together. New business ideas and the environment were the typical topics that we used to talk about. As Catherine said, we always wanted to do something that would have a bigger impact on the environment and protect our planet. One day when we were grabbing a cup of coffee, we said, "how about take away coffee cups?" We started doing some research and unfortunately, we found the numbers quite overwhelming.

2.7 million cups are thrown out every day and that's over 1 billion in Australia. Some people say that number has doubled or tripled in the last couple of years.

Then we looked at what alternatives are available. You have normal takeaway coffee cups; they are not recyclable and the majority of them have a plastic component. Then there are a lot of green washed biodegradable cups. Of course, we have reusable cups, but the majority of consumers find them quite inconvenient. Catherine and I started to think, "what can we do that is convenient and waste free?"

The only solution that we could find that is truly sustainable and is waste free is something that you can eat, and that's how the idea of an edible cup was born. We performed a lot of kitchen trials and spent a lot of hours fine tuning a recipe that goes really well with coffee and has the functionality of a normal takeaway cup. After many hours of working and testing in Catherine’s kitchen, we finally found the recipe that could work as it didn't leak and was tasty. That was how Good-Edi was born, and since then as a start-up there have been a lot of challenges, but there were three main ones for us.

Our first challenge was finding a supplier who could produce these cups as an industrial product, where we could get repetitive quality and the same functionality.

We searched around the world and finally found the right supplier. Another issue was obviously COVID-19. When we had our prototype ready, we had to test it in the market even though we were in lockdown. That was a very difficult thing to do, but finally by networking we found a cafe and we launched our product in a farmer's market so we could get some validation. The last challenge, but not the least was fundraising. That is a very challenging part for every start-up, but it was for us also quite challenging to find the right investors and raise the funds that were required to set up production.

That's a really good summary Aniyo. Speaking of last year, you participated in the HATCH: Taronga Accelerator Program, and received $50,000 as the grant winners. What have been the biggest lessons you've learned since winning that prize?

[Catherine Hutchins] - The HATCH program was amazing! It was incredible to be helped into the start-up world, it is hard to know where we would be without participating in that program. The mentors and experts were invaluable as individuals coming to the program, and they supported us along the way to build our start-up and achieve our goals. Since the program we have had many learnings and learnt a lot of lessons. We have had to learn skills across a whole business, so that's something that we've really found challenging but rewarding as well. When you are working in a business, you just focus on one fun part of the business that you're usually an expert in.

When you begin a start-up however, you really have to understand every aspect of the business including the legal, accounting, production, human resources and financial aspects.

A really important learning that helped us was to reach out to experts and people in our network for help. Sometimes when you're creating a start-up, you feel like you are drowning and you think you really have to do everything by yourself, but you don't.

There are so many people that can help, and we have been really humbled by the help that we've received, and it has been critical for us to be able to achieve what we have in such a short timeline.

Those are some great lessons that you've learned Catherine. What support is needed from purpose-led businesses and the sector as a whole to continue generating a sustainable impact in the future?

[Aniyo Rahebi] - Although the concept of purpose in business and social enterprise is growing, the biggest challenge is that we are still measured the same as a purely for-profit business. Earlier, we talked about the challenges around fundraising, and we learned early on that investors and venture capitalists [although we are trying to do something good] cared only about our profit margin and cashflow.

The main support that this sector could receive is having investors, organisations and companies that really care about impact more than just the money side of business.

We believe that needs a lot of improvement. Obviously, when you are a product-based start-up company, the timeline around scalability is much longer. But again, when you look at it, we are compared the same way. The majority of tech companies get funds much easier than product-based companies, although again their impact can be same or much larger.

What are some inspiring projects or initiatives that you have both come across recently which are creating positive social change?

[Catherine Hutchins] - We really love a company called Great Wrap. They are a local start-up here in Melbourne, and the founders are Jordie and Julia. They created an alternative for cling film which is sourced from potato-based materials. They produce everything locally; we have been in contact with them, and they've helped us along our way and we've seen them do brilliant things. We really like them, and now that we've set up our production we really appreciate where they are, how far they've come and their journey as well.

Do you have any recommendations Aniyo?

[Aniyo Rahebi] - I have an enterprise, and they are very well established now. They're a company called Reground, and how they started actually was with collecting coffee grounds from cafes that they turned into compost. Now they have really expanded their business into education for waste management, and also, they collect soft plastics which is very interesting.

Although they are all about infrastructure waste management, you can see that a small start-up is making a fantastic impact in this space by basically turning waste into a resource.

It has definitely been very inspiring to watch their journey and to learn more about what they have achieved in quite a short amount of time.

Thank you very for those recommendations.

To finish off, what books or resources would you both recommend to our listeners?

[Aniyo Rahebi] - One thing I cannot recommend enough is the StartUp Creative podcast. At the beginning of our journey, we went to an event and Kaylene Langford was the speaker there. Since then, we have listened to almost every podcast that she has made. What I really like about what she is doing is that she is sharing a lot of great initiatives and practical experience when it comes to start-ups. In the very beginning, you need to make decisions about how to build, start and grow your business, so those inspiring stories I can't recommend enough.

Catherine, do you have any books or resources you would like to discuss?

[Catherine Hutchins] - We're always on the lookout for other start-up initiatives in companies that we can learn from and be inspired by. One of the stories that I recently came across was from the founder of the company Patagonia, the outdoor clothing brand.