Find out more about moving away from single-use coffee cups and embracing the circular economy with 'swap and go' coffee cup systems.

Webinar transcript

- So, first of all, I don't know if you're aware, but it's NAIDOC week, so it's quite fitting that we have an acknowledgement. We celebrate First Nations people during NAIDOC week and we recognize and celebrate that our First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65,000 years, so we're very privileged. We'd like to take this moment to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work and play and to show our respect to the elders past and present and other Aboriginal people here today. May our sincere participation contribute to the collective healing of this land and all beings on it, beginning in each of the places that connect us this evening. So tonight's webinar and the Let's Go Swap and Go program being put together by our waste education team. My colleague, Alicia Lloyd, and myself started developing the Swap for Good program last year and we're currently working with businesses to move them through action plans to reduce single-use plastic. We would like tonight to present an overview of council's support and expression of interest that's open to try and promote the swap and go cup systems. We also have Rosemary Roche and she'll be joining us tonight from council, and Rosemary has eight years' experience as environmental health officer, so thanks very much, Rosemary, for joining us tonight. Okay, so we're going to kick off the presentations tonight and then we will introduce the panel of swap and go providers, which we have four 'swap and go's, and they can give you some information about their unique systems. Each system is slightly different and we love them all so it's really fitting that they're able to present all the differences and highlight the great things about their business and how it could be adapted to your business. Hopefully by the end of the night you will have a clear choice and you will be ready to submit your expression of interest. Okay, so we know that cafes have been through a really tough year, so we started off the year and actually end of last year with the really bad bush fires, and then after that, of course, COVID hit early on in the year, so businesses have really had to, apart from the struggles, they've had to innovate and really think about new ways of doing things. And it's driven everyone to have a think about how they can be better custodians and do things differently. So far in our conversations, with what Alicia and I have been doing, we've had conversations with the 150 businesses, or had conversations with over 2,000 businesses on the Northern Beaches, but we have had 150 businesses register with Swap for Good, so we're moving those guys through action plans. And just to give you an idea, the businesses that we're working with, we are supporting them to reduce over 1,050 cubic meters of single-use plastic, and if you're not sure how much that is exactly, it's about the size of 25 humpback whales. So we're asking businesses to tackle one single-use plastic item at a time, and as you can see, over three million coffee cups are on our radar. And we think that the swap and go coffee cup system is really going to help reduce the single-use cups.

- Cool, so obviously it's good to hear about what your other cafes are doing on the beaches. So just last year, we were talking to businesses about ways that they were saving money and reducing single-use plastic disposable coffee cups, and one thing we were hearing was that a mug library was really easy to implement. And one local cafe at Freshwater, the Saltbush Cafe, they were saving $7,000 a year in disposable cups by having the mug library there. And he said that one of the best things about the mug library was that if he could get a customer at the front of the line to pick up a mug, then all the other customers would see it happening and follow suit, which is a really great example of how behavior change actually works. On the Northern Beaches we have six cafes with the mug libraries and one of those is The Beaches Market as well, so they support the cafes, the stall holders at their market to have the mug library there and they brought up this great idea called no single-use Fridays, which is once a month at the markets, and one of the stall holders only operates using the mug library. So just by doing this, they increased their mug library usage from 30 mugs to 280 mugs, and this is then saving an additional 3,000 disposable cups per year from landfill. So we'd love to hear about what your cafes are doing, so if you want to pop in the chat right now, just what cafe you're from, and if you know anything about like any stats about your reusables at your cafe, maybe how much rough percentages of either cups or dollars that you're spending on cups, that is something that we could really work with you on and help you reduce that or give you a bit of a baseline. So, yeah, we just love stories, so tell us at the Beaches Council what you're doing and we'll get back to you to work on a case study of your business. So, yeah, swap and go systems are really similar concepts to the mug libraries, and we have 30 cafes already on the beaches using swap cup systems and we're trying to basically double that number. So the benefit of these systems is that there is a clean, reusable cup ready to go in case someone does forget to bring their own cup, and one local Manly cafe actually reported that 50% of his customers were BYO-eautiful, which means they're bringing their own cups, of course, and so that was actually saving him $11,700 per year in disposable coffee cups and lids, so there's some really significant savings to be had. And in a nutshell, I hope that these case studies have helped to show that we can all make a difference. Every cup really does make a difference. It makes a difference for our beaches, for our bush land, it also saves us money and it reduces waste, so it really is a win-win-win situation.

- So... Sorry. Okay, so council really wanted to throw their support behind the swap and go's and the businesses need options. And we thought, especially in light of COVID, that it's a really good opportunity to give cafes and support another option that might really work for them. And we found that there were four main players in the Sydney market, so we've got Green Caffeen, Huskee, Returnr, and Claycups, and we love them for all of their differences. The way that we're supporting is the council has funded a startup bank of cups for each of the four, and it will be offered to a limited amount of cafes, and essentially what it is, we've bought banks of cups, round about 20 to 25 cups per cafe, so they will be provided to the cafes that are successful in their EOI, and then the cafe will need to match those cups for the customers, so creating that circular system. So it's a startup program. So the idea is that we help the cafe sort of start up. There's lots of support from us and mostly from the provider, but we're all doing it together, and so we help the cafe get up and running and we monitor and make sure that the cafe has got everything needed, and then beyond the three months where we've got a major focus on you guys, then you can pick it up and go independently of us from there. So it is envisaged that it's an ongoing system beyond the three months. Your chosen provider will be the main point of contact, but we're here to hold your hand, between Alicia and I, we're in the office five days a week, so we're only a phone call away. And we will hear a lot more from all of the providers later on in the webinar and they can give really great detail about what they do and they're offering. We've got some really tidy fact sheets that really breaks down the four different systems, so all these fact sheets are on our website. If you go into the EOI page, they're hyperlinked and we will actually send them out after the webinar, so you've got those ones as well. Do your sums, work out how much you can save, and also how many cups you'll save from landfill, and with all of these systems, I think you'll find that within weeks you'll find it a return on investment, so financially you'll be ahead within a very short period of time, so it's definitely something you should take advantage of. So there are a couple of criteria. There were three simple ones on the left-hand side there that you're not already using a swap and go, obviously northern beaches LGA, and that you're making an effort to reduce your single-use plastics. So whether you're right at the beginning of that or whether you're halfway through, doesn't really matter as long as you're on your way and you're moving forward. And Alicia and I, separate to this program here, to help you move on other single-use plastic items as well. There's also a desirable criteria. You may not be able to tick every box, but we still want you to put in everything that you've got. If you've got strong media presence, that's great. If it's not one of your stronger areas, that's fine, just let us know what you've got. So every bit of information will help. The closing date for the EOI will be the 15th of December, so you've still got a bit of time. The submissions are rolling in, so probably best if you do your research tonight or fairly soon, and submit your EOI. We do have these cup banks available for a limited amount of cafes, so probably wouldn't wait too much longer to submit that EOI. The cups will be distributed early next year, late January, early February, we envisage, and we'll start out by grabbing a baseline to see where you've started, so we can track trends and make sure that you've got everything you need to keep moving in the right direction.

- So, one thing that you might be worried about is that you get your swap cups, but you find it really difficult to help your customers to make the switch. So already with the Swap for Good program, we actually have a number of resources that will help you with this, including action plans which can be tailored to your cafe, and some of these action plan steps include staff training or putting up posters and signage. So it's all just about the communication of how it works and making it really streamlined. We also have little posters that can help remind people about why we're doing this, so our countertop poster there has the ocean in the background, and I really find that that is a great way to just reframe any barriers that you have with your customers, is just to remind them we're doing this for the ocean or whatever place it is that you really love in nature. Gently remind them about that and you're sure to get them back on side again. And if you don't get them the first time round, that's okay as well because they're probably coming back there regularly and they're going to see all your other customers starting to do it, so that's how behavior change works. Some people you get straight away, other people a bit later on, but you've got to keep nudging just gently, gently. And we have a behavior change guide that will go through all of that as well. And a marketing guide, so that is another way of getting the message out there, perhaps through your newsletters or your social media posts. So in a nutshell, with the EOI and the Swap for Good resources, hopefully you will agree that council are really here to support you on your transition away from single-use plastics. So up next, we're going to hear from Rosemary, and that's our council's environmental health officer, but we're just going to quickly have a little look at this video first, which outlines the three safe methods to safely pour coffee in a reusable coffee cup since COVID. So one of these methods is the swap and go system, so I'll point that out once it starts. So this cafe is French Basket in Dee Why, and as you can see, they put their reasonable cup in a sanitising solution and then rinse it with boiling water. So the video has 33,000 views on Facebook and it's available on YouTube, so we invite you to keep sharing this with the customers. If they're not sure about whether your methods are COVID-safe, all of this has been approved by New South Wales Health and the Food Authority, so this is a great one to share in your newsletter or social media. The next method here is Phil from Ruby Lane in Manly and he's got the swap and go system there with a contactless drop-off point. So as you can see they also have the option of keeping the lid, which might make customers feel a bit more safe if you want to offer that to them. And the other thing they do is that they wash their hands after they stack the dishwasher. And then the other popular method is also the contactless pour, which is a little bit difficult to do in a streamlined way for most busy takeaway cafes, so that's why it was great when it was a bit quiet during the COVID lockdown, but if you have a lot of customers coming with their cups, then you probably need to get a swap and go system going. So we'll hand over to you now, Rosemary.

- Okay, can everyone hear me? Okay, cool. Okay, well, I guess one of the concerns from a business owner's point of view, I would imagine, is making sure that you can do the swap and go system safely, reducing any transmission. And we've been hearing so much about COVID-19 and I guess that's the main issue and our main concern at the moment. Just briefly, I guess, how it gets spread through small droplets from the nose and mouth and it goes on to objects and surfaces that people touch, and then they go on to touch other objects and surfaces. And I guess that's how it spreads from person to person. Ideally, you will likely have hand sanitiser upon entry into your cafe, and it's important that customers use this upon entering. We recommend having clear, in-your-face signage upon entering, and that there's sanitised there, "Please use before entering our cafe" because you're trying to protect yourself and your staff just as much as customers. All cafes must have a COVID safety plan and within the plan there's a requirement to reduce the number of surfaces touched by customers wherever possible. And I guess that's why the swap and go system is ideal in this situation. It's not certain how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on surfaces, but it seems to behave like other coronaviruses, and studies suggest that, including preliminary information on COVID-19 virus, it may persist for a few hours or up to several days, and you can reduce your risk, and the swap and go system puts the business in control of surface transmission, so it can definitely be done through safe handling of swap and go cups. So leaving a basket or a box for customers to leave their used cups in, in the one location, clear signage. The basket there on the right, ideally an enclosed type basket for any droplets, any sort of liquid doesn't escape, so that would reduce any extra cleaning that you have to do. It reduces direct contact with the cups. The customers walk in, leave the cups there, and then a staff member comes along and picks it up and sanitises it. Avoid touching cups directly until washing in the sink or placing in the dishwasher, so when the basket gets full, then there's a designated staff member who comes along and then puts it into the dishwasher or cleans it through the double bowl sink. Always washing hands after placing cups in the dishwasher or handling the cups in general, that's probably the number one main thing at the moment being told to everyone is more and more hand washing. And ensure, when washing hands, we'll just go back a moment there, that's all right. And then just ensure when washing hands to flick the tap on and off with your elbow or paper towel, avoid touching the tap again after cleaning your hands. It's all about reducing the risk as best that you can. You can control what utensils staff come in contact with by using the swap and go. Managing reusable cups, it's a little bit different. You're not in control as much as the swap and go system, but it can be done. And health officers want to work with businesses and if you come up with an idea or a way of reducing transmission, you can always just contact council, we can come out and have a look because at the moment, I guess coronavirus, especially, health officials don't have a hundred percent answers as to how it works and how it operates, so it's all about reducing transmission steps, one step at a time, and it definitely can be done. So in your COVID safety plan, there can be a designated staff member ensuring that sanitiser and signs are at the entrance, barista asking if cups and hands have been sanitised prior to entry and things like that, so, yeah, can be done. Next, yeah, so the importance of hand-washing cannot be underestimated. I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times. It's so important, after coughing, sneezing, cleaning, changing. So if the barista moves from making coffee to changing the bin bags, going to the bathroom, changing their job, assisting customers, it's really important that that liquid soap, warm water is available to create that lather on your hands, heaps of suds, that's what lifts off the dirt off your hands and dry them thoroughly then as well. And all of this helps to clear off any pathogens that may be on your hands, and it's amazing just how easily things can be picked up, but like I said, if you knock it at every possible step, it can be done easily. So one of the main things in a food business is sanitising. It can't be underestimated and it really needs to be understood why we do it, what it is, and what's the best way to do it. So sanitising reduces the number of organisms on a surface to a safe level that you can then put food onto. So it doesn't completely 100% kill and eliminate, but it reduces and it's one of those steps that you can do after cleaning the surface, so cleaning away that dirt and grime first and then applying your sanitiser. Usually heat is a form of sanitiser to a certain temperature or chemicals, and they can both be used together also. And so bacteria, viruses can be present on coffee cups and other utensils, therefore effective sanitising is definitely crucial after cleaning. And just in the next slide we talk about the different methods of sanitising. So for example, with heat, commercial dishwasher, that gets up to above 70 to 80 degrees, gives a quick result, especially those commercial dishwashers, they're very quick, very fast and get the temperature very high. So that rinse cycle is at least 80 degrees and it's hot enough at a long enough temperature to remove any harmful bacteria. The other option is a double bowl sink. So not every cafe given space, for example, or even design can have a commercial dishwasher, so that double bowl sink is really important for one half of the sink for the washing to remove what we visibly can see, and then the second half of the sink is to fill your sink with water and sanitiser, and then leave it in that solution for the perfect contact time. Now each sanitising solution is different. You have to read the instructions on the back. They're all different. There are so many out there. Contact time can be anywhere from one minute to 10 minutes and you really just need to think, do I have 10 minutes to leave things soaking or am I busy and I need to get things moving quickly? So you really need to make sure that you get the proper chemical sanitiser if you can't use the heat option. You can use unscented bleach. It does need to be diluted correctly and I'm happy to send out that information to everyone separately, just because it needs to be written down because I don't want to for anybody to take the measurements incorrectly because it can be quite strong. But yeah, sanitising is just one of those steps that when done correctly, it can be very, very effective. When you're loading the dishwasher, when you pick up your basket, your boxes of cups, you bring it over to the dishwasher, you load it, and then you go and you wash your hands. Make sure loading the dishwasher that you put on the hottest cycle. Domestic dishwashers are fine in certain circumstances, except that usually you have to put it on the longest cycle and it's not very practical in a cafe. Clean your dishwasher regularly of limescale and scum build up because this can affect the efficiency of it and therefore things may not come out as clean or sanitised as what they were intended to. Sometimes in a container or a bucket for cups, you have to ensure that it is diluted correctly and that cups are in it for the required contact time, so it's really important that you just read the instructions on the back. And also some of them require a solution to be made every couple of hours, every 12 hours, and especially if it's starting to look grime, greasy, it would need to be changed more regularly, so somebody needs to be designated to ensure that it is okay and it's diluted correctly and contact time's perfect. Providing signage for customers, make them feel like it's an easy, streamlined process and that you have everything under control. From the point of entering they know where to go, all staff members can explain the process clearly. It makes them feel a lot safer, and signage, and as I said, alcohol hand rub upon entering always makes that customer feel safer, and making access to the bucket, basket easy for customers to use as well. Yeah, so look, any questions on it, feel free to ask. Definitely council are supportive of this swap and go method. It can be done. It just takes training and it takes staff members to be really aware and conscious of what they're doing. All right?

- Thank you, Rosemary, that was great.

- [Rosemary] No worries.

- Yeah, I think it's basically having that information there is really empowering for businesses and there would be someone in the business that is a food handler, but maybe not all the staff are aware, so it's important as part of the staff training of the swap and go system that you go through these things, so they can then also tell the customer if they're the ones that are handing over the reusable cup as well. So yeah, in a nutshell, we can be safe with reusable items and by following the food standards code and the COVID safety plans, swap and go systems are a great way forward.

- [Rosemary] Yep.

- So, sorry, I might've just gone too far there. Yep, go back. Okay, so yeah, now it's time to hand over to the panel and Rosemary will be sticking around, so if you have any questions about safety, feel free to pop them in the chat, for any of you that just arrived as well to the webinar tonight. And we're also going to have some time for questions later on as well. So we're really lucky tonight to have three of the swap and go providers with us. We've got Damien from Green Caffeen, Michael from Huskee, Katie from Returnr, and Stephen sends his apologies. he's looking after his son this evening, but he has a wonderful video to share with us, so we'll see that soon. So our first speaker is Damien Clarke, and Damian is the driving force behind the growth and uptake of Green Caffeen, specializing in social engagement products and tech design and sales. He previously worked in real estate and particularly enjoyed working the crowd as an auctioneer. And during the break from the workforce, Damien actually developed a passion for coffee, technology, but most importantly, nature, and he became aware of the damage that single-use plastics was having on nature and spent many volunteer hours cleaning the beach and promoting things like "Take 3 For The Sea." Damien also holds a bachelor of education and currently sits on the Australian Packaging Covenant Organization working groups and the Global Reusables Network and is a sitting committee member for The Man Walk Australia. So welcome Damien.

- Thank you, Alicia. I'm just checking that everyone can see and hear me first before I wind up. Yeah, thumbs up? Fantastic, that was my mum that wrote my bio. Thank you for doing that, and thank you for sticking with it, Alicia, that's very kind of you. Look, thank you so much for having us on to the Northern Beaches Council. It's got some good resources there that we've all seen and we're honored to be working with you. Congratulations, first of all. Green Caffeen, Green Caffeen is a really simple swap and go reusable system. We launched Green Caffeen in Kiama, our hometown where I'm presenting from this evening, on the New South Wales South Coast. We've now grown with Green Caffeen to have cafes in every state and territory except for Tasmania and we're really, really proud of the uptake we've achieved. There's some staggering statistics, I just saw that three million single-use coffee cups to the Beaches Council. I mean, that's a lot of waste. And when you think of it as a consumer, but more importantly as a cafe, looking at an average of $700 with a single-use packaging that your consumers, your takeaways, your regular customers are using each year for single-use coffee cups. And that's a staggering amount when you actually sit back and look at it, and we're proud of that we can actually now help you eliminate that cost, but also eliminate the waste, environmental waste goes with it as well. Alicia, if you could flip the button on the next page for me, please. This is a little video about how Green Caffeen works. It's on YouTube. Takes about 51 seconds.

- [Narrator] Disposable cups are hurting our environment. One billion disposable cups are consumed in Australia every year, with the majority ending up in a landfill, and the problem is growing. But Green Caffeen has a solution. Buy a coffee at a participating cafe and scan the code using the Green Caffeen app. Enjoy your coffee in one of our reusable green cups, then return the used cup to participate in cafe when buying your next coffee, or just return the cup when you're finished. Grab a fresh clean green cup the next time you order. Use our scan swap and go cup system as many times as you like, so you can enjoy your coffee and have a positive effect on the environment. Keep the planet clean. Join Green Caffeen. Visit www.greencaffeen.com.au

- So there, look, thanks for the support. Green Caffeen is a free reusable cup system. And you can see that we'll be rolling these cups out from the Northern Beaches Council. We've got the logo proudly embedded on them. That cup was actually in Avalon. Some cool things happening with a great little community group there. So we've supplied, Green Caffeen supplies cafes with the float of cups. The cups are washed out and ready to use. There is a bit of technology and it literally is an app this is the magic of Green Caffeen. It's just a simple scan code to go to your point of sale, and then customers download the Green Caffeen app, which they can do in Apple store and Google Play. Walk in the cafe, they scan that code every time, and that records the impacts that we're having, not just at your cafe, but for the consumer, the cafe, and for the council. And that's really clear data and metric that we can actually work, and that show the impacts we're having. But more importantly it actually gives you guys incentive to continue your drive with your footprint to eliminating single-use, and incentivises your customers to look at the impacts they're having, not just your cafe but across the whole network, every time they choose to reuse a Green Caffeen cup. So you can see on the right there, really simple. For a customer, it is just like a library book. It is actually a free system for the customers if they use it correctly. They have 30 days to return the cup to any participating Green Caffeen cafe to avoid any late fees, we bill a $12.99, late fee. So far we're buying it just under 3% of all in the network to either being lost or eaten by dogs, that is a bit of a popular one. At the moment, people are letting their dogs grab hold of it. But all the metrics and all of these, be happy talking a bit more detail with everybody if you're interested about how it all works. So Alicia, we can get next slide, please. So we proudly partner with you as the cafe. On our cafe finder on left-hand side of the screen. This is Girdlers at Dee Why who have been using our system for a while now. We put your Facebook links, your Instagram links, your website links or anything else on the cafe itself. And we're really proud to let people search your cafe through the Green Caffeen app. And that's all free of charge as part of our partnership and work with you, on the elimination of single-use. Green Caffeen cups are proudly made here in Australia we're two Australian blokes have started to have a mission to eliminate single-use plastics. And one of our ethos was to make sure that we could actually do everything locally based. If it wasn't in the Illawarra and or NSW, we did it here in Australia. So it comes to actually my 75% food grade recycled plastics and probably get some questions on that later on, happy to answer that. They are made in Brisbane which is fantastic and I'd love to be in Brisbane and every Green Caffeen cup as we talked about is cleaned and sterilised, ready for reuse for the next customer. One of the things that we found really quickly with the impact of COVID and Alicia, if you could flip to that next screen, for me, I'd appreciate that. With COVID kicking off, obviously around sort of February, sort of threw us into a little bit disarray but really quick to come to the market and see a lot of cafes continue to grow and use Green Caffeen through the whole COVID in Melbourne, in Queensland, all over the place. So really proud of our green card, as we call it, and excuse the play on words. There's plenty of things you can do with the green theme. And that's a COVID safe plan, which is available on our website and it's available on that little link there and the team will have a resource as well. And that's really just our COVID safe. And it's clear signage for your cafe as we saw in the Swap for Good program. It's just little tips and hints on how you guys can eliminate the chance of contagion concerns through the COVID virus when there's cups returning in the cafe, it's just really, really simple and a common sense plan. So I look forward to any questions and I'm very grateful for the time this evening. Thank you.

- Thanks, Damien. That was great. Yeah. We've got a few questions in the chat and I also had a question myself just about the app. You mentioned that you, yeah, you need to download the app and that might've been missed in the video as well when we didn't have the sound. So sorry about that. But yeah, the customers do to scan and then runs use the QR codes now. So it's actually quite simple, but I'm just wondering if you have any examples of cafes or communities where they've really helped the customers to get ready for that step before they actually come to the cafe when they're actually really, you know, craving that caffeine fix. Is there something that they can do to, you know, through an EDM or something like that that you've seen done really well to get the customers ready for the app?

- Yeah. That's a great question. When we first started this, we had no idea what it would look like whereas now thousands of users and hundreds of cafes we've worked out that it's really, really simple. The more active you are on social media talking to people who follow your cafe about what you're to trying to achieve it and how you do that, the quicker you can get there. At any point Green Caffeen takes no less than 30 seconds to sign up. So people all the time we see, will actually sign up, join the program and get their first cup there. So it's really not a barrier to entry for people to grab their first cup. And we also supply all our cafes with a Green Caffeen toolkit. And in that toolkit it is resources for your social media. So you can actually proudly tell everybody what you're doing, how you're doing, but more importantly I'm getting involved with Instagram, Facebook and Instagram Stories, finding the uptake really, really quick. Once we have, you know, the cafes talking about that on a regular basis.

- Awesome. Sounds good. We did also have another attendee write a question in about their cafe which apparently doesn't have very great mobile reception and not very good Wi-Fi either. So I'm just wondering if that has been an issue that you've managed to work with any other cafes on that and how you've overcome it or yeah. Just any suggestions on that.

- Yeah. Look, that's a really good question from Lisa at Gusto on the beach I've had some communications with Lisa over the years, probably four months ago. So at least, yeah. Its one of those situations you might be better off using Returnr or Claycups cups in that event. I've expressed that to Lisa. The only thing there is if you have really good Wi-Fi and customers are using that Wi-Fi on a regular basis and you can actually tell them with a Wi-Fi signal as they get the system, like actually still use the system through a Wi-Fi network. Don't have to have the cellular data but I'm hopeful on the Northern Beaches, we've got some pretty good coverage.

- Cool, great. And there was one other question in the chat. What does Green Caffeen do to reach out to their customers? Do you just rely on the coffee shops to do that or is that something that you guys do as well? Like will you be shouting out when a new cafe comes on board, for example?

- Yeah, really good question. We're very active on social media And we know that most of the people that drink Green Caffeen and following us as well. So we always notify and, really, let them know what the cafes are doing, we've got a policy, if you tag Green Caffeen in something, we will share it to our network. So notify other people through email as well one of the great things about our system, actually tell who's who, and where they're located. Yeah, one of the great things about our Cafe Finder we regularly get people each week making purchasing decisions around, you know, who supports Green Caffeen and then finding them through our app. So that's a really good question. Thank you.

- Awesome. Thanks, Damien. So stick around and you we will put you in a breakout room later if there's any other questions for Damien and Sasha is just going to introduce our next speaker.

- Yeah. So thanks, Damien. That's awesome. Really good overview of how it all works. So next up, we've got Michael from Huskee. And just to give you a bit of a rundown, Michael has been in the business for over 10 years and the Huskee swap is currently available in 22 countries, including Australia, UK, and USA. Michael's got extensive knowledge in cafe service and operations and came to know Huskee as a customer in the first instance. So he was able to combine his love of coffee and experience and joined Huskee in 2018. Back then it was a relatively new concept and it has gone gangbusters in the last couple of years. So I think Huskee is very lucky to have Michael and he was happy to do his part in getting rid of reducing single-use plastic cups as well as improving the workflow and sanitation of reusables as well. One thing to note is that Huskee's head office is in Sydney. So would be a great thing for the Northern beaches people to have personal contact with. And it's Sydney, Michael is Sydney-based. So yeah, over to you, Michael.

- Thanks, Sasha. Can you guys all see my screen okay?

- Not yet.

- No. So are you able to still present?

- Yeah, we can still share here if that's all right, yep.

- Great.

- Sorry.

- That's all right.

- Just let me know when you want to go to the next one.

- Yeah, sure. Firstly, thanks to you both for inviting me and this has been great so far and it's great to have that engagement with the community and you guys are obviously very passionate about what you do. And I feel like you've presented the kind of information around the swap programs really, really well and really balanced. So yeah. Thank you for that. So I'm ready for the first slide. Great. So we're a Sydney-based company. We actually started as a Kickstarter back in 2017 and we actually reached our stretch goal in 48 hours. That's how many backers and supporters we had back then, which unlocked our natural color. So we have the natural and the charcoal and a universal lid. So we actually launched the product as an at home cup, reusable cup to also be used in the cafes. But because of the backing that we had we were able to release that lid straight away which paved the way for Huskee, really, as a company our mission, simply put, is just to reduce waste in the coffee industry, both at the farm and closer to home. You can go to the next slide there. So we've got our goals and our goals really are through the pillars of sustainability. I'm not sure if I can see, oh that they are, is to reduce, reuse, recycle. So these obviously terms that we're all familiar with but how we do it uniquely at Huskee is we want to reduce the number of takeaway cups that are ending up in landfill. We want to reuse the coffee husk generated from coffee production, and we want to recycle Huskee cups with Huskee swaps closed loop system. All right, ready for the next slide please. So the HuskeeCup itself has three uses. It can be an at-home cup with universal saucer. It's a cafe alternative to ceramics and glass, and it's a reusable cup with a universal lip. All features coffee husk as a raw material, so coffee husk is actually a waste product from the milling stage of coffee production that usually just sits on a coffee farm. It can be a fire risk, a pest issue, it's often not just used. So before we even got going we are repurposing that waste into our cups. HuskeeCup itself is durable, it's dishwasher friendly, it's BPA free, and available in a six ounce, eight ounce and 12 ounce. And it was actually awarded the Good Design Award Best in Class back in 2017 when we first launched the product. So that was great. And then we can move to our HuskeeSwap slide, please, Alicia or actually we can stay on it. That's fine, yeah. So HuskeeSwap, what we're here to learn about. So it works very similar to cup exchanges. All you need to do is at a cafe holds HuskeeCups which are washed, sanitised on top of their espresso machine. A customer will come to the till with a HuskeeCup or buy one from the cafe, that cup gets put aside to be sanitised and their beverage gets made in a freshly cleaned HuskeeCup. Our model is actually a purchase model. So we wholesale cups the cafes and cafes yourselves you can retail them to customers and it's the revenue from cup sells, which really help offset the operational costs of washing cups, or the service you're providing and beyond savings on disposables, HuskeeSwap is not only environmentally sustainable, but it's also a sustainable business practice as well because of that revenue that's coming in from the cups. The benefits, we have an app but it isn't needed for a straight swap. So that makes a much more frictionless ordering. You don't need to get your phone out. You already need to do that to PayPal or Apple Pay or your loyalty card system or your order ahead. So your phone is not actually needed to do a straight swap. There are three interchangeable sizes so you can have an espresso in the morning in a six ounce cup. And if you fancy a large tea in the afternoon, that's totally fine. You're not limited. There's no obligation to return the cup because you've bought one. It just means that you always have access to a HuskeeCup and you can swap it as many times you like, one day, all week, every day, if you like, or just a few times a week, it's totally up to you and it's scalable and self-sufficient, as in the more people that swap, the more cups that you sold which you can further and invest in swap cups and you can grow your customer base. Next slide, please, Alicia. Great. So the app, so I'll touch on that briefly. It currently features as just the locations map so you can kind of fire up the app, see where your local swap site is and load up all the details about them, where they are, how to get there, any information that the cafe would like. And the new features which we're launching in a couple of weeks is the ability to borrow and store all through a QR code. So the store function simply means that if you've got a HuskeeCup with you and you're going out for dinner or you're going down to the beach and you don't want to carry a HuskeeCup around with you all you do is just scan the code at the cafe and you can store that cup with them and pick it up at your next convenience. And the borrow function is best for when someone forgets the HuskeeCup or wants to try HuskeeSwap without buying a cup. So essentially the $21 gets held on your card and you've got five days to return it. So like I said, you can use a HuskeeCup if you've forgotten one or you can try it out before you even need to buy one. And that's a couple of features which is launching in a couple of weeks. Next slide, please, Alicia. So our attraction so far in Northern beaches, so we have 13 HuskeeSwap sites and over 50 HuskeeCups stockists. So we've got really good brand awareness. People know what the cup is. It's quite iconic just with all those people that already have cups. You have the ability for them to access HuskeeSwap at your cafe. There's still plenty of more that don't have the cup and they'll be interested in purchasing it from you. Next slide, please, Alicia. HuskeeLoop. So this is a massively developing part of our business and essentially it's how we deliver on the closed loop element of HuskeeSwap. So essentially how it works is if you get a, as a cafe, if you get any cups which are swapped in, which are chipped or damaged or cracked, you put those aside we collect them from you and we replace those cups. So essentially your float cups are protected by what we call float protection, all these cups which come back to Huskee we repurpose them into new products. Some of the things that we're doing is a POS stands and we've actually stopped started to test a three ounce Huskee cup made from repurposed end of life, HuskeeCups in Australia. So that's manufactured here and new products all out of end of life, broken and chipped cups. That's a really important step for us which is to really capture all these cups and just continue to use them because the materiality is very suited to it. And Alicia, I believe that's my last slide.

- Well, I think maybe you have one more, hang on. And there was a little note there about a three ounce.

- That's the testing we're doing at the moment with end of life HuskeeCups that we're repurposing into a new material. Yeah. And that's just the kind of that last thing slide to kind of encapsulate how the system works from a HuskeeCup, HuskeeSwap, HuskeeLoop, and the HuskeeTech element is actually the materiality of the cup. Yeah, that's Huskee and HuskeeSwap.

- Thanks, Michael. That's great. We just had a question from Adriano. Are there any integrations with POS systems or ordering system? Like Hey You?

- Yeah, certainly. So we work quite closely with Hey You so we fully integrate with Hey You, and we've worked with Ritual as well so we can totally integrate. Essentially the bare bones of it is it's a modifier. I think swap systems and order ahead has just worked so well because it's the only way that you can truly order ahead with a reusable, because typically you have to wait for that reusable cup to be returned before a cafe can make the drink, but not with HuskeeSwap. So yeah, the short answer is we can fully integrate with Hey You and we have done with Ritual as well.

- Right, all right. Another one from Adriano about the lid. Any thoughts about changing the lid? Customers talk about having to suck the coffee and not drinking naturally?

- Sure. Okay, I think, you know, it can be difficult when you design a product because it suits some people and it doesn't suit others. We've designed the top of the lid where you sip from, it's quite high, deliberately so, so it feels a bit more like you're drinking from a dine-in cup and not from a grownup sippy cup. So that's why it was done that way. And if you're drinking something like a batch brew or a long black actually pulls slightly which makes it a bit easier to drink. The holes themselves that you're talking about, they're not just steam vents. They actually dictate the flow rate of the coffee. So we designed that to flow optimally but of course it's not going to be suited to everybody. The lid is universal. We are always tweaking the design and we have some potential new lid fit features coming out. But not going to have any timelines on that but no new lid coming out in the next few months, at least.

- Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that, Michael.

- You're welcome, thank you.

- There was just one other question there in the chat about, is it Counta? Is that another order ahead app? Has anyone else heard of that one? Yep.

- I have.

- [Alicia] Are you guys in that one too?

- It depends on the involvement with the order ahead. So something like Hey You, we can really integrate with and we can add some much extra features. But order ahead typically for a HuskeeSwap, you just need to add it as a modifier, for example, extra hop or two sugars, because then it then it comes through on the docket. So actually the integration you need is the add HuskeeSwap as a modifier, which most cafes can do themselves on their side, or that usually have like a support email they can just email through and ask for it to be added. And then as I said, it either pops up on the digital screen or it gets printed on the docket.

- Cool. It sounds like you guys have thought of everything. All right, thanks again, Michael. So over now to Katie from Returnr, so Katie is a passionate reuser and environmentalist. And through her efforts, she caught the attention of Returnr and became a foundation member of their tight knit and nimble team. Katie brings years of project coordination and sales experience to the team from her background in corporate and architectural sales. She was really happy to shift gears to a role that could create a positive change after seeing the impact of fast furniture as an interior designer. And you can certainly see her design skills have come in handy at Returnr, and she certainly looks happier enabling a tangible change in the community for the better. Over to you, Katie.

- And thank you for having us tonight. So we are Returnr and we hail from Melbourne and our team consists of ex cafe owners who inherently have an understanding of what it takes to make a product that performs not only for you, but for your customer as well. Our products can be found in every state of Australia, but funnily enough except Adelaide, don't know what's going on there. Our products and systems can also be found in the US, Ireland, Canada, and Germany as well, just to name a few. Our team consists of proven behavior changers. So KeepCup was the original reusable cup designed and purpose-built for coffee on the go, but it relied on customers remembering their cup and can't perform in what we call behind the curtain and scenarios. So drive through, order ahead. So hence, Returnr was born. Thanks, Alicia. Returnr exists to prevent the production, consumption and landfill associated with single-use packaging. I understand tonight we're talking specifically on cups, Returnr's focus is far broader than that. You know, our big, hairy, audacious goal is to wipe out all single-use packaging. You have bowls, burger packaging, cups, while reducing your packaging costs as well as a business. The versatility of our range is really what sets us apart. And we inherently believe that reusable products, these cups or bowls, need to outperform single-use. So that's a key focus of our business. An example of that, thanks, Alicia, is the twin wall. So the twin wall vessels that we produce. What makes the twin role insulation so fantastic? Well, it actually enables you to maybe potentially expand your delivery radius. So for instance, one of our customers uses, in fact we've got a few customers that use our canister, you can play on the screen, for ice cream and it's been tested to hold temperature for 20 to 24 minutes, which far out performs cardboard, or plastic. So stainless steel is one of the few materials that also doesn't take on the odours or stains. So whilst Returnr does cups, we do coffee cups, we do cups also for milkshakes, for smoothies, for kombucha, for tea, or any other liquid that you, beer even, any other liquid that you can think of. And the versatility of our range also makes it suitable for your order ahead apps. So you can add it to Deliveroo. We've got an agreement with Deliveroo that they will not put on their margins, or they take their commission from any Returnr of product where they haven't got customers that have put Returnr out onto their Uber menu basically this is a modifier. The portion control markings make it really easy to communicate to your customer that they're getting what they paid for. So whilst Returnr products might not be an exact match to a single-use product, the versatility that the portion control markings make it really easy to translate that. Thanks, Alicia. So you can target more of your menu with Returnr items and here can see, you know, just a really brief, quick view of the menu items that you can take out with the Returnr range. Thanks, Alicia. The unique thing about Returnr and the products that we provide is the lids. We've got reusable lids that have been designed as a retail add-on. So our customers that really love using Returnr, and there's many, many of them out there, they can purchase their own lids for reuse. And I think particularly now with you're being in a post-COVID world, there is a psychology around sharing lids. And whilst you and I know it's no different to washing it in the, it being a fork, being washed in a commercial dishwasher. There is that psychology that people don't want to share lids so people can own their own and they don't have to share. The other option is to take a card lid. And when I say card, it's a bagasse lid which is sugarcane waste, sorry it's purely sugar cane waste, steamed and formed, so using the least amount of virgin materials as possible. And it also just makes the management of the Returnr fleet that much easier. If we pop onto the next slide. We'll see the versatility of the range, the ice cream, Vietnamese. We also encourage our customers to go lidless. If you don't need a lid, don't take a lid. And I think that the image in the bottom corner there, the sushi, is a really great example of a case where you might not need a lid. Certainly wouldn't send it out on an Uber like that but for a walk-in customer, normally makes a lot of sense. So how does it work for your customer? Well, our main comm is that it's free to borrow. It just requires a $6 deposit which is the mechanism that keeps our products moving around and keeps people accountable. Where is it free to borrow? It is free to burrow, it's when the customer returns it, they get their $6 back but it's not free to keep. So if the customer chooses to keep that Returnr item, it costs them $6 and we keep it really simple. There's no apps, there's no scanning. There's no personal details. And forgive me, this slide was put together maybe pre-COVID. We probably wouldn't refill a customers' Returnr if they walk back into store but swap it out for a fresh one. Thanks, Alicia. So how does it work for your business? Because, it's really simple. We take a $5 deposit from you for every Returnr that you take and you push those out to your customer for $6. So there's a dollar gap in the deposit there. And the reason that we've done that is because we don't make any money on the Returnr products themselves. That's just simply our cost of goods. And at any point in time, just like your customers can return the products to you, you can return the products to us. So you might return them to us if you're overstocked, if your menu changes through the seasons. So we take, we ask for first payment upfront and we charge a monthly fee of $48 a month. And its only the first order that we asked for upfront, thereafter we bill everything at the end of the month with seven day terms. So, most of our partners have turned all the products they've taken into cash by the time they need to pay us. So whilst it does seem like a more expensive option, it actually works out better. And if you flip to the next slide this is a really good example of a eight week view of a high volume customer that's implemented Returnr. They took a bowl only and, you know, in the first eight weeks they had 2500 reuses. They only took 490 bowls and only issued 42 refunds. So when you consider the packaging savings costs, when you consider that, you know, all the products if they were, to be returned, you know they've got the cost covered there. Returnr is a really great option. So, thank you for your time. We'd love to talk to you guys. If Returnr has sparked an interest, if you'd like to wipe out single-use packaging, not just coffee cups, we'd love to talk to you.

- Great. Thank you, Katie. Yeah, I loved all those stats there at the end. That's really amazing. We actually, also, we put a question in our expression of interest and we've already had about 15 cafes sign up already. And one of the questions was about containers. Yeah. And about 90% of them are actually interested in containers for, you know, the future. So it's great to see that the people who are applying for our SwapCup EOI are actually thinking about the future and thinking about containers. So that'd be great to have that in there. Just in relation to that, I was just wondering if with the flat fee that you have, I'm sorry the partner fee that you have, if a business adds any more items like the canisters or anything that you bring out into the future. Does that fee go up or is that a flat fee?

- No, it is a flat fee. It's, yeah. We may increase it one day but we absolutely have no plans to increase it as we add to our product range. So, I mean, in the coming weeks we are adding version two of the bowl. We are adding clear, see-through lids which will make the products perfect for grab and go. We're also adding smaller canisters and that partner they will always stay the same. A question came through in the chat. And that was just about the Deliveroo. Yeah, the question was, what's the deal with Deliveroo?

- What's the deal with Deliveroo? Deliveroo, they're really fantastic. They've been thinking about ways of limiting their waste for a long, long time. So they have agreed that they will refund their commission taken on any order. So if you've got a salad, you add a modifier for Returnr you won't pay that commission on that product with Deliveroo, they will deliver the bowl. They do require your customer to come and bring that bowl back into receive their refund. And at the moment that's probably a really great way to get the customer back into the store.

- Awesome, yeah. They come back to get that $6 back. So that's good. Then they probably place another order. Right. We also had another question coming about containers for it's a sushi venue that's written this through and actually I really love the sushi canister image there, so novel use of that container. Do you have plans to bring out a container, specific, like a bento box?

- Look, if we weren't recording this tonight I probably could have shown you guys some prototypes that we've been working on that we're close to bringing to fruition. So, like I said, we are looking at a huge range of packaging to wipe out. And so sushi is certainly one of those items that we really want to conquer. So stay tuned.

- Yes. Awesome. And another final question that came through in the chat was, are the lids disposable?

- The card lids? Yes. As I said they're made of bagasse, so they can be home composted. They can be commercially composted. That can be recycled if they're not too heavily soiled the reusable lids are obviously not disposable.

- Perfect.

- Yep.

- Yep. All right. Thank you very much, Katie. I think that covers everything about Returnr for our local cafes. And hope that they consider that in the EOI. Thank you so much. Stephen couldn't make it tonight, but Sasha's still going to do his bio anyway and we're going to show a video. So.

- Yeah, thanks, Katie. That was awesome. Love stainless steel. Yeah, so Stephen has been in the hospitality/cafe industry for 20 years and it was just a few years back that he calculated that he'd produced over two million of coffees in his time as the barista. And he was just starting to think about the impact that that has on the environment and then War on Waste came up. So, and he said that really drove home the point that there was a lot of scope that this really needed to be worked on. So going beyond cafes, merely selling that reusable cups, you really wanted to put in action a different system that just concentrated on getting rid of these disposable cups. He recently started a new cafe in Chatswood that has no reusable cups and instead has his own Claycups as a primary cup system as well as the swap and go Claycups as well. He says that he accidentally discovered that being environmentally aware, isn't just good for the planet, but it's great for the hip pocket. So Stephen feels that he has saved a heap of money through adopting a reusable coffee cup system and Stephen with Claycups his company's put together a great video. So we might get that rolling if you can, Alicia

- After 20 years of working in the cafe industry I've observed that we are just out of control with our waste and Australian coffee culture is one of the best in the world. But one thing we haven't addressed is the environmental impact of our industry. It was always part of my vision was to create a reusable cup that was also durable enough that could be swapped and reused in a cafe environment to replace paper cups. We've designed Claycups so that they will interact with the coffee machine and the baristas just as a paper cup would, but without the waste. They will fit in the cup holders of cars. They will fit in coffee trays. And most of all, they're familiar to people. So it's not such a great leap for people to use them. So Cup Bank basically works. It's a deposit scheme. So the customer will come in, they'll order their first coffee and pay it a deposit of $8.50 to the cafe. That deposit is redeemable. At any time with the safe return of the Claycup. It's up to the cafe owner. I like to incentivise by offering a free coffee. The customer basically will walk away with the coffee. Once they've finished it, they'll return the cup. And ideally what they do is they return the cup and then swap it for a new cup, bucket will be taken to a cleaning area where there'll be disinfected, sterilised, and washed. And then put through a commercial grade dishwasher which is essential to ensure sterilisation. And it stops landfill and stops the issue of consumption which is very destructive to our planet. It's also from a capitalist point of view, very cost effective, currently operating around 10 to 12 shops at the moment. We have obviously taken a bit of a hit during COVID with all the fear that's around, but we have got some really good Claybank customers but basically we need to start thinking about the environment in every aspect of our lives. It's a critical time. Our futures literally depend on it right now. And I'd like to ask everyone to get behind it. If it's not Claycups swap and go, make it another swap and go, or just bring your own reusable coffee cup.

- Love that video. You can see Stephen's really passionate about what he does. Yeah, we don't have Stephen with us tonight but he'd love you to send through any questions that you've got. So yeah, just send them through after or pop them in the chat and we'll make sure that you have your questions answered.