A Cup of Good

Whether it’s a morning ritual, or a way to catch up with friends, a cup of co ee can certainly boost our mood – especially when “your cup of joe” is doing good for the environment and community at the same time.

The Taranaki café doing its bit for the community and environment.

Aregular cappuccino; a flat white with oat milk; a latte with a splash of almond milk. No matter your coffee order, research shows that coffee (in moderation!) has many health benefits including the ability to increase energy levels, support brain health, lower the risk of depression, and potentially lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.

With the latest statistics showing that New Zealanders consume 0.94 cups of co ee per day and the local co ee market projected to grow by 5.14 per cent from now until 2025, plenty of us are reaping the health and wellbeing benefits of our daily cup – and plenty of cafés are doing their part to keep us co ee-fuelled.

For the New Plymouth community, one of these cafés is Proof & Stock. Found along a suburban street a few blocks back from the water, Tane Morgan and Adrianna Greenhill opened this popular café and roastery back in 2018 and have been giving back to the community in any way they can.

A second life for co”ee cups and grounds

“The number of cups we go through each day is incredible,” says Morgan. “So we’ve developed a little box at the end of the property where all of the compostable cups get shredded. We also add the co ee grinds, and on top of that we’ve got all of the husk that comes o the co ee roasting itself.”

All high in nitrogen, this combination gets mixed with green waste – and within two months or so it is a healthy compost that is delivered to the community gardens in the area.

As for the milk cartons, these are collected and converted into building material.

“Taranaki doesn’t have a production plant to recycle packaging from Tetra Pak, and we are a province of hundreds of cafés and restaurants and all of this was going to landfill,” explains Greenhill.

After reaching out to New-Zealandbased company SaveBoard, the café is now a pickup point for New Plymouth for all Tetra Paks.

“They get washed, split in half, and Paul – one of the SaveBoard co-owners – picks them up from us, takes them to the plant and they get shredded and heat compacted to create a certified GIB,” says Greenhill. “We actually have that on our back wall at the café. It’s really cool to see that waste put to use!”

Fostering the next generation

Inspired by friends who operate Shining Peak Brewing and their ‘5% Project’ – where that percentage of beer sales is donated to Taranaki-based non-profits each month – Proof & Stock created the ‘A cup for change’ project, and for a month last year 50 cents from each cup of co ee sold helped a local group of youth head o with their surfboards to El Salvador for the world championships.

“We wanted to have a social obligation, and we’d love to do it again down the track – it’s just about finding the right cause that we can support,” says Morgan.

Another way the duo give back to the community is via their barista school for secondary school students. Prior to opening their own café, Morgan spent five years teaching at the local Polytechnic in the hospitality space, and he was eager to continue educating others.

Funded by the Toi Foundation, an organisation “committed to reducing economic and social disparities by funding where there is the greatest need”, six students will be going through the programme this year – one of those students already now working at Proof & Stock.

“We place our students out in the community within our stockists. It means all of our wholesale customers have a trained barista that has been with us and understands Proof & Stock.

“It’s super rewarding to be able to get back into teaching what I know,” says Morgan. “Seeing that flow through to the next generation is pretty special.”