I Am Grounded

Our Sustainability Framework

• Emissions & Key Environmental Issues

  What is your company doing to reduce your emissions or combat key environmental issues (e.g. waste (packaging, end of life product strategy or recycling), biodiversity, land use, water, chemical use, energy use, and natural resource use etc.)?

  I Am Grounded is a social enterprise based in Sydney, that utilises Upcycled ingredients in snack foods to reduce food waste. We are working on UN Sustainability Development Goals 12 and 3. Predominantly, I Am Grounded is commercialising a new type of energy snack with upcycled coffee fruit. Our co-founder Vanessa was born in Colombia into a coffee family, whose father is a food scientist and coffee byproduct expert. She grew up completely immersed in the industry and has seen first-hand the waste problem and the empowerment upcycling the fruit can have on coffee farming communities. Her passion to work with smallholder farmers at origin allows us to have a clear and transparent direct relationship with our growers. Each snack represents a tangible result in reducing food waste by rescuing 70g of coffee fruit from ending up in landfill. Manufactured in Australia, these modern-day snacks are the first coffee fruit-based snacks to market. Since launching we have rescued just over 7000 kilos of coffee fruit from ending up as landfill.

  Learn more →
• Materials

  How are the products your company offers made from environmentally friendly materials (e.g. recycled, organic materials)?

  - Made using only organic and natural ingredients (free from pesticides and artificial preservatives). - Made with upcycled ingredients (which would otherwise go to waste). We rescue 70g of coffee fruit from ending up in landfill - Shipped with home-compostable satchels - Shipped using Sendle a carbon-neutral courier - Packaged in recycled cartons and recycled mailer boxes

• Supply Chain

  Do you partner with ethical factories that meet international labor standards? What processes have you implemented to make your supply chain more sustainable?

  We partner with a handful of smallholder farmers in Colombia who implement fair trade practices when growing their coffee. We buy direct so have a direct-trade relationship which is extremely rare in the supply chain. Our products are hand-made in Australia using ethical manufacturing and employing Australian labour. Our contract manufacturer is HACCP-certified and Organic-certified, lovingly crafting our snacks with ingredients sourced from Australian farmers when possible.

• Community Initiatives

  How does your company give back to the community (e.g. financial donations, volunteering, partnerships etc.)?

  As a social enterprise business, we aim to give back to our community where possible. Most important to our mission is that our coffee farmers are paid for their byproduct! Creating a new value chain directly provides additional employment and income to our coffee farmer partners who would have had to pay waste removal fees or dump the coffee fruit waste into landfill. In addition to this, we have donated our bars to help feed the homeless at 300Blankets in Victoria; we've donated our bars as a gift pack to the Women's Mater Hospital Nurse and Midwives group; we've donated our bars to many educational institutions such as UQ, QUT and Monash to support student entrepreneurship and sustainable initiatives such as 'Party with a Purpose', 'UQ O-week', 'Monash Sustainable Fair'; We've given financial donations to Fromemos Fundacion in Colombia- helping to home and educate displaced children in agri-communities.

  Learn more →
• Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

  How has your company made a commitment to achieve and maintain inclusion & diversity (e.g. Gender / Race / Ethnicity / National Origin / Sexual Orientation / Religion / Disability / Age)?

  As a small team with routes in Colombia. We are proud to be Latinx co-founded and a majority women-owned social enterprise.

• Circular Models

  How does your circular model or circular initiative work?

  Our business model is built on the upcycled food model. Officially defined as: "Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable chains and have a positive impact on the environment." Why Upcycle? The global food system is broken! Globally $1 Trillion dollars worth of food is discarded every year! The world wastes 45% of the fruit and vegetables produced yearly amounting to 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, according to Project Drawdown. Our Problem: In coffee, that's roughly 20 billion kilos of coffee fruit and 16.6 MT of the World's CO2 emissions. Over 25 million coffee farmers around the world produce 80% of the world's coffee with many unable to earn a reliable wage from their harvest. One of the deterrents from breaking a pattern of poverty is access to technology. Without access to innovation and diffusion of byproducts from upcycling, buyers, importers & consumers are either kept out of the loop or unaware of how they can create impact in coffee, a beverage beloved by the world over.

  Learn more →
• Service Offering
• Sustainability Certifications

  Our certifications