Elemental Coffee is a family-owned and operated small-batch coffee roastery in Pāuatahanui. As well as supplying workplaces and cafes, they offer coffee equipment repairs and assessments. We asked CEO Rob about Elemental's environmental practice:
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We use ethically sourced beans from sustainable plantations around the world. The importer we work closely with is very committed to this as part of their business.
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We have personally met the coffee farmer from Papua New Guinea. The relationships between NZ and Australia have enabled him to significantly increase his and his communities quality of life. The fair income they receive enables the building of safe and quality housing and installing a hydro power plant at their village and coffee processing plant. We use their coffee as our main base bean. Upon meeting him we made a personal promise to do our best with his coffee.
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Elemental Coffee personally delivers as much of our orders locally as possible. We use a hybrid vehicle for this which significantly reduced our fuel usage.
Coffee roasting creates a waste chaff bi-product. As we roast at our farm we collect this waste and use it on our gardens. We have found it is extremely good compost and our hop plants grow amazing well with daily additions of coffee chaff! The hessian sacking, used to transport green coffee beans, can also be found in most of our garden beds for weed control and is used by the bee keeper who runs hives on our property for smokers.
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As we deal with local cafes, we also provide pig bins to these customers. Our pigs get an amazing supply of food waste that would otherwise be sent to landfill. This reduces waste removal costs for cafes and keeps our pigs very happy!
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We do what we can, realistically, to reduce our carbon footprint. As we grow we continue to look for new and innovative options in this regard.
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Check out Elemental coffee here.
