KeepCup: from discarding to reusing

Rebecca Archer

Welcome to The Remarkables, Grant Thornton's podcast series dedicated to sharing extraordinary stories of individuals who are making significant contributions to their communities. These people paved the way for a brighter future and motivate everyone to make a positive impact. KeepCups were first sold in Melbourne in 2009, providing a solution for single use packaging and the overwhelming volume of waste entering the environment. We've all seen them, and most likely even own one. And it's why I'm excited to be interviewing today's guest, co-founder of KeepCup, Abigail Forsythe. 

So, how has the business grown over time, and how do they continue to make an impact on sustainable practices around the world? Let's find out. 

Welcome, Abigail, and thank you for joining us on the podcast today.

Abigail Forsythe

Thank you, Rebecca. Lovely to be here.

Rebecca Archer

Now, we love to start by asking all of our guests what they're reading, or listening to, or watching right now.

Abigail Forsythe

Right now, I'm reading Caledonian Road, which is a new work of fiction, and it's set in London. It's actually set in where our office is and where my brother lives. I guess it's about living in this day and age, being a man in this day and age. 

Rebecca Archer

All right, so let's just jump straight in. Can you tell us a little bit about the KeepCup story?

Abigail Forsythe

KeepCup started in a cafe with a simple idea. Keep it and use it again. So my brother and I were running Bluebag Cafe in the city in the early 2000s, and we had a great coffee business. And it was when coffee was really starting to emerge as a specialty art, the cafe culture was booming. And I realized that the disposable cups we were using weren't recyclable, and thought, oh my god, this is terrible. I went down to Myer to find a reusable cup that we could sell in the cafe. The only thing available was a giant mug that wouldn't fit under the group heads. Didn't have the dosage right, so you couldn't correctly get the ratio of coffee and milk right.

And so I thought, well, we'll just design our own. And we did. And it was a combination of naivety, enthusiasm, and really wanting to find a solution to a problem that drove the business forward. We were like, oh my god, surely someone's done this before. We can't be the first people to be making an eight-ounce cup and a twelve-ounce cup that you can use instead of a disposable cup. That was our big fear.

There was nothing else out there that specifically addressed that espresso market. And then a couple of years later, my brother and I were in New York at a retail trade fair and then we saw a whole raft of business, and oh my god if we'd gone to this trade show, we probably never would have done it. Like, we never would have started it. So it was a bit of a combination of what you know, and what you don't know.

Rebecca Archer

And obviously, sustainability is at the heart of your business. Why were you both driven to start a sustainable business? What was so important about that to you?

Abigail Forsythe

I think it's just a connection to the natural world. Like, I've felt that all my life, and seeing waste in, you know, rivers and when you're walking along in a park, all those things just. It just seems so unnecessary to me. And I feel like others would feel the same way.

Rebecca Archer

Is it true that most takeaway coffee cups are not recyclable? That's my understanding that if you buy a single use cup from any kind of cafe, generally that cup goes into landfill.

Abigail Forsythe

Totally. So most of them are virgin paper lined around a polyethylene cup. So it's like a plastic bag with a paper sleeve on it. They cannot be recycled because you can't separate the paper and the plastic. There are biodegradable and compostable cups, but unless they go into a dedicated waste stream that goes straight to a commercial composting facility, of which, you know, last count, I think there were eight in Australia, then they're just going to landfill as well. And even if they can be recycled, it's like, well, we're using finite resources to make a product that you use for 30 seconds and then throw in the bin. It just seems nuts to me. And particularly, I think, you know, things are changing in that space, but also things are changing in the coffee space.

And coffee, because of climate change, is becoming increasingly hard to grow and expensive. So, you know, eventually it will become like wine for a lot of people. Where you're drinking, if you're paying $10 for a cup of coffee, do you want to drink it out of a plastic bag?

Rebecca Archer

I'd love to know if you are aware of any statistics out there on the use of single use cups since KeepCup started.

Abigail Forsythe

That information's pretty hard to come by and pretty closely guarded. I found an article in 2009 from the Sustainability Manager of Starbucks that since sort of disappeared from online channels, which said, basically we use over a million disposable cups a minute around the world. And I would say that number, despite KeepCup’s best efforts, has only grown. And now I guess we have another issue where, you know, reusable cups have become a bit of a lifestyle and a fashion item. So how many reusable cups do you need?

Rebecca Archer

So how do you manufacture and produce KeepCups? What goes into that process?

Abigail Forsythe

We have a design team here and we design the product, then we look at materials. We're trying to always incorporate recycled and recovered materials into the product. So sometimes that's from, I'd say like a boutique waste stream, like from our own QC in our own factories. Sometimes it's post-consumer waste, but that generally will come from a much wider waste stream to the manufacturer and it's providing that to all its suppliers. Then we look at how it's going to be packaged, how it's boxed up. Almost all products coming out of China come in a plastic bag. So advocating to get them out of the plastic bag, for a tiny business like ours has been a challenge, but we've done it. And then we're looking at where are people reaching for a disposable item rather than a reusable item? And how can we intervene there? And then we find the manufacturers and work with them to develop the product and work with them to get it working for them and for us as a win-win.

Rebecca Archer

And I feel as though before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there was a huge uptake of KeepCups and people were bringing their own personal KeepCups to work and using those when they'd go downstairs or outside to buy a coffee. How did the pandemic affect things? Because was there sort of a movement, a pushback from businesses from taking people's KeepCup to sort of avoid exposure to other people's germs and things like that?

Abigail Forsythe

There was a massive pushback led, by the big players whose businesses are all about convenience. And this equation of single use with hygiene happened. It's still happening. Yeah, I think that there was a real, you know, KeepCup started at a time when sustainability was coming out of, you know, was becoming mainstream and it became like, you use a KeepCup in the mid-2000s and people would sort of give you a nod like, “we're making a change here”. It was born of optimism, certainly mine as well. That individual behaviour change could change the world, and that politics follows culture. And when you get the cultural drivers to go, let's move away from single use, then legislation will follow. But the pandemic sort of stopped all that in its tracks, and one, it pushed, you know, single use became the norm, absolutely. 

But also, I think from an individual's point of view, we saw how quickly governments could act, we saw how quickly they could lock us all in our houses, and we're like, well, if you can do that, why aren't you doing these things that are going to protect the natural world, to, you know, preserve our air quality and the environment we live in? So I guess, to me, it made it seem like, what am I doing worrying about a reusable straw when people are flying their jets to get a 15 minutes to get a coffee? The inequities of all that became really stark, I think.

Rebecca Archer

Do you think there's now a bit of a turnaround where people are coming back to keep cups and being more conscious about sustainability and not so cavalier in terms of the single use plastics?

Abigail Forsythe

Maybe, I think it's now been conflated with a lifestyle choice. So, you know, instead of being, you know, we were very much an advocacy campaign-based brand, and now we are, we're sort of being co-opted into being more of a lifestyle choice.

Rebecca Archer

KeepCup is in 75 countries across the world. What have you learned or observed about those different markets?

Abigail Forsythe

I think the main influence on those different markets is the macro influences that are driving the conversation around sustainability, around separation of waste, around expectation of who's responsible for that waste. They're the things that are quite different. Is your right to convenience a human right, or is the right to protect the environment for our kids and future generations? And that system's change is more important. So I'd say Australia's been very much about individual action, less about thinking about the system. That in Britain and the UK, they're much more systems oriented in the way they're thinking, not necessarily doing yet. Yeah, more systems oriented.

Rebecca Archer

And how did you know which point in time was the right time to expand into international markets?

Abigail Forsythe

We didn't, that’s the short answer. I think we were a little bit younger, a little bit more enthusiastic. My brother was traveling with his partner, who now his wife, and so he started up the UK arm of the business many years ago. So that probably was what drove it. He was there, he was open to the opportunity, and it grew from there.

Rebecca Archer

And have there been any surprises or shocks to you through that expansion? Anything that's really opened your eyes?

Abigail Forsythe

Totally, I mean, all the shocks, all the shocks are around people and strategic decisions and all sorts of things. So, yes, many shocks.

Rebecca Archer

So we are obviously now living in a world that's becoming increasingly eco-conscious. In what ways is KeepCup innovating to stay ahead as a business and contributing to drive a positive impact for the environment.

Abigail Forsythe

So we do a lot of work that you don't see in our supply chain, as I said, to remove unnecessary packaging and plastics from that supply chain; to reuse materials through the supply chain. You know, we've got solar power on the roof, not just a pledge to do it in 2030, we've done it. So the way we work as a business and the values that we hold here from all the team, I think, would be part of it. We're always working to put recovered and recycled materials into our product lines. And then we're working always to look to intervene where people are reaching for a single use item as opposed to a reusable items. So late last year, we launched a ColdCup range. So with a straw, because a lot of young people just don't drink hot coffee, they much prefer a cold drink. So intervening there with a sort of a lofi solution, that's not a gigantic fashion statement, but more something you can easily carry. And, you know, we say we design for drinking pleasure, so it's about how you experience the beverage, how it looks, that sort of thing. Yeah, looking, looking at those places where new ways of consuming are changing and where we can intervene to go, hey, this might be a nicer way to eat or drink this thing. 

Rebecca Archer

And it's obviously now quite a crowded market. You've got a lot of competitors. What do you do to stay ahead as a market leader?

Abigail Forsythe

We were caught pretty flat footed with the whole digital evolution, so we've had to school ourselves pretty quickly. And I think for a while there, we became, you know, I remember during the climate marches, someone had a placard saying “KeepCup won't save the world”. And it was like, yeah, duh. But there was a bit of a backlash where people were like, “hey KeepCup thinks…” This sort of worthiness, that probably was creeping into our language as well, about what people should and shouldn't be doing. And nothing turns you off more than someone telling you what you should be doing. So we've sort of, it's the same message, but we've just evolved it to be a little more, a bit lighter, a bit more of a nod to, you know, the absurdity of using a reusable straw in a world where they're opening more coal mines every day. And this idea that living by your convictions and your values is the best thing to do, no matter what anyone else is doing or saying.

Rebecca Archer

Abigail, you mentioned earlier that you've always had sort of a connection to nature and the natural world. Can you talk a little bit more about that and that connection that drove you to operate a sustainable business?

Abigail Forsythe

I was born in Scotland and came out when I was little and my mum is from Bacchus Marsh, which used to be a bit of a sleepy country town, which it’s not any longer! And we grew up in Templestowe, which was like horse paddocks at the time. So I didn't have a particularly nature based childhood. And, you know, my family didn't do a lot of, you know, I do a lot of walking in nature now.

That's something that I didn't do with my family of origin, but I do with my kids and my family and friends. You know, we're part of an ecosystem, we're part of a system and we've got to look after the system that we're in. I think a lot of the, you know, the lessons of indigenous cultures have for us about that long term thinking about, you know, our connection to land are so critical at this time and I think they are being heard more.

Rebecca Archer

So the term KeepCup is now pretty much synonymous with any reusable coffee cup. How does it feel to know that your brand had that kind of an impact?

Abigail Forsythe

It says it's good days and it's bad days. Sometimes when someone's got some horrible cup and they're like, “that's a KeepCup”. You're like, “that's not a KeepCup!”. But, yeah, it's a great privilege and it's an inflection point in time of when something changed.

Rebecca Archer

It’s almost become that name where you've got a Band Aid or an Esky, that type of thing, or a Hoover for a vacuum cleaner. That KeepCup is now the go to description. Did it take you a long time to come up with the name or was it just sort of very obviously there?

Abigail Forsythe

So we have worked with a design agency and those guys were just starting out when we were starting out back in 2008, and we were sort of brainstorming all the names and there were all these different names. And then Andy came in on the second sort of meeting we had, and he goes, I've got it. And we're like, oh, what is it? And he goes, KeepCup. And we're like, yep, that's it. It was so clear. It was a great name.

Rebecca Archer

Yeah, it does say it all, doesn't it? It's perfect. And so, in terms of the products that you have got in your lineup, do you have anything on the boil that you can share? Any new or exciting projects that you're looking at?

Abigail Forsythe

We're expanding the ColdCup range, so that's probably the most, yeah we're about to launch a couple of new products there. And then we've got something launching at Christmas time in partnership with someone, which is quite exciting, which sort of takes us out of the cup world.

Rebecca Archer

And just to finish off, Abigail, I wonder if you could share with everybody the most remarkable advice you've ever received. It can be a personal anecdote, it can be in your professional line of work, just the most remarkable advice that has really stood out to you in life.

Abigail Forsythe

My grandmother used to say, “never surrender”. So a bit of that, a bit of that. You know, it's that knowing when to hang on and knowing when to yield. My dad used to say to me when I was little, just yield. And I had no, I didn't really understand. I mean, I knew, wanted me to stop whatever the hell I was doing at the time, but I didn't really understand what it meant until I was with my daughter and she was about four at the time, and it just popped and I just went, just yield. And I said it to her and I was like, oh, that's what he meant. It just sort of came out. So just, yeah. Knowing when to hang on, knowing when to let go.

Rebecca Archer

So for people who would like to continue to see where your journey's going and keep up to date with KeepCup and yourself, what are the best ways for them to find you?

Abigail Forsythe

I'm on LinkedIn. KeepCup is on LinkedIn. And then Instagram, TikTok, and our website, all just by searching KeepCup, you'll find us.

Rebecca Archer

If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories you can find, like and subscribe to The Remarkables podcast by Grant Thornton Australia on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or ideas on who you'd like to hear from next. I'm Rebecca Archer. Thank you for listening.