Coffeenotes made something of a grand debut into the POC Community at Brand Licensing Europe (BLE) earlier this year, with a fantastic product showcase on the POC Stand. Now, we are introducing you to the company behind the notebooks as we welcome them into our membership network.

With a background in paper, printing, and publishing, Sarah Downey, founder of Coffenotes, created the brand as a sister company to Epic Print, which creates paper print and packaging products. Epic Print had worked with paper maker and innovator, James Cropper for a number of years, but when it pioneered its CupCycling process, transforming used disposable coffee cups into paper, Sarah’s interest was piqued and she began working with James Cropper, through Epic, to utilise this new kind of paper. Seeing its potential, she then founded the Coffeenotes brand to really maximise this innovation, creating premium quality notebooks, with fountainpen-friendly paper, made from your flat white cup that got tossed in the bin.

Sarah explained that she has always had an interest in alternative fibres for paper, especially when utilising waste. For its CupCycling, James Cropper works with coffee outlets, cafes and retailers to receive used paper cups, converting 95% of the waste back into paper and the remaining 5% of plastic used for energy recovery in paper production. It has the capabilities to recycle 700 million coffee cups every year, intent on its mission to revolutionise coffee cup recycling.

Crucially, most single-use coffee cups cannot be recycled in regular recycling streams, due to the composite materials and plastic lining – even compostable cups cannot be recycled. Companies like James Cropper that develop viable recycling streams for the millions of such cups used every year, and Coffeenotes that can create quality, useful, and educational products from them are the circular solutions needed until we can minimise the single-use stream.

Coffenotes creates a selection of notebook formats, from stitched, layflat, and wirebound, each boasting thoughtful material usage. For example, Sarah explained how usually the wires in a spiralbound notebook are plastic or nylon coated, meaning they cannot be recycled and contribute to further plastic waste. Instead, Coffeenotes sources tin-coated or ‘naked’ spirals from Germany, which can be easily removed from the notebook at the end of its life, and scrunched down to be put into kerbside recycling alongside tin cans.

“Stationery is a single-use item – you’re not going to reuse it; it’s not going to have that long a life. We try to encourage people to think about what’s going to happen to it afterwards,” said Sarah.

Even with its variety of paper makeups, whether it be the recycled coffee cup paper, or its notebooks made from beer fermenting by-product, or fibre waste from cotton and wool manufacturing (Coffeenotes continues to explore new waste fibres), all Coffeenotes paper products are recyclable in usual paper waste streams, and can also be composted, making them easy for consumers to responsibly dispose of them at end of life. Coffeenotes includes all of this information in the back cover of every notebook, to gently educate on and encourage this behaviour with its products.

As well as selling direct to consumer through its website, Coffenotes stocks its notebooks in various specialist stationery shops, lifestyle shops, coffee and tea shops, restaurants, and some museums. “I much prefer to think of Coffeenotes being in smaller, independent shops, where somebody’s going to be prepared to talk about it and engage with customers, than it being lost in a melee of lots of other things and the story behind it not being very visible,” said Sarah.

One of its exciting stockists is the National Theatre, which contacted Coffeenotes as it was already sending its coffee cups to James Cropper, and therefore selling Coffeenotes stationery in its store provided a perfect circular storytelling opportunity.

Coffenotes has also worked with RSPB, WWF, and has some other collaborations lined up as it continues to explore the demand for more sustainable, high-quality product, with a rich story and consumer appeal.

Read more about Coffeenotes on its website here.