RØDOVRE, Denmark – Three Colombian entrepreneurs aim to challenge coffee as perhaps the world’s most underutilized raw material while also reducing the massive CO2 emissions from brewing the 3 billion cups of coffee consumed globally every day. Oil from coffee grounds contains abundant nutrients that can be used in skincare, cosmetics, and food. This is the foundation for Kaffe Bueno, which is now opening the world’s first coffee biorefinery in Rødovre, Denmark.
Kaffe Bueno opens in Denmark
Does your day also start only after you’ve had a cup of coffee? Imagine washing your hands and hair with soap and shampoo made from coffee. Or how about applying lotion with coffee after a shower, using a foundation with coffee as part of your makeup, or eating a pastry baked with coffee for your… morning coffee? Sound far-fetched? It’s not.
Already Used by Nivea and The Body Shop Hair and skincare products and cosmetics from brands like Nivea and The Body Shop, as well as bread from 7-Eleven, already contain oil and fibers from coffee grounds, which we usually consider waste.
These ingredients come from Kaffe Bueno, which has been working since 2016 to refine and upcycle coffee grounds to utilize the proteins, antioxidants, fats, and other nutrients they contain.
When we brew a cup of coffee, we utilize a mere 1% of the nutritional value in coffee’s biomass. Much of the nutritional value literally rots away with the coffee grounds, which usually end up as waste. This exacerbates the problem as the decay releases large amounts of CO2 and methane, which is about 25 times more potent than CO2.
“For every ton of oil we extract from coffee grounds, we save the atmosphere 56 tons of CO2. While protecting the environment and climate, we also utilize a much larger portion of coffee’s nutritional content. We must think in terms of better and more gentle utilization of nature’s resources,” explains one of the three founders of Kaffe Bueno, Alejandro Franco.
Plans to build coffee refineries worldwide
The company is fully engaged in both the development and sale of ingredients for the cosmetics, skincare, and food industries. With €2.5 million backing from the European Innovation Council, Kaffe Bueno is now opening the doors to the world’s first coffee biorefinery. Located in Rødovre, it can initially upcycle 500 tons of coffee grounds per year. But this is just the beginning, says Alejandro Franco.
“We can expand the capacity to 1,500 tons at the Rødovre refinery, but the plans are much bigger. The coffee grounds and the ingredients we produce from them should not be shipped around the world. They should be utilized and distributed as close to the raw material and producers as possible. Therefore, we plan to open more coffee biorefineries in other parts of the world within the next 10 years.”
At the Rødovre refinery, Alejandro Franco expects to double the current staff of 12 within the coming year. Kaffe Bueno has 17 products in its range, and more are on the way from the world’s first coffee biorefinery, which opens on September 29 in Rødovre.
