Building brands from the grounds up

This month Melissa Fretwell caught up with Grounds for Good Founder Dr Rosie Oretti over a perfectly mixed Negroni made with the Grounds for Good gin, to chat about the wonders of coffee waste and how to drive a tuk tuk across India without harming any sacred cows. Tea drinkers this is also for you. 

“I absolutely had no plan to set up a business. This was not on my radar at all and then the pandemic happened. Having all that time to reflect about things including the waste from coffee shops. It probably wouldn't have bothered most people but it really just kept coming back to me.  We drink billions of cups of the stuff a day and we're not going to stop doing that. We love it. The market is booming, coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil. And yet there's this byproduct called waste coffee grounds which no one ever thinks about. We are more interested in the takeaway cups and whether they're recyclable. And when I started researching this, and I love researching things given my science background, I learnt that coffee grounds were going to landfill. Like all food waste it gives off methane, which of course is a big greenhouse gas emitter. 

Inspired by other companies creating products from coffee waste, I began on a small scale, starting with body scrubs, to support the homeless charity I was working with. The business grew from a crazy desire to show that something could be done with this waste material.

Now we have three alcoholic drinks which taste great and are packaged in cardboard bottles, home accessories made from coffee grounds and a smart way to protect your plants from pests, all made in Wales.” 

1. Build your tribe: “A key piece of advice for fellow founders is the value of a supportive community. Unlike my previous career in medicine, where a built-in support network existed, the business world required me to seek out genuine connections. Those who cheer others on and can be a sounding board. Those who offer helpful introductions, rather than hard selling services to me that I may or may not need. ‘Buy Women Built’ is a great example of a community done well. A stronger community at the beginning could have helped me avoid some naive decisions. It really is who you know that can unlock opportunity faster. 

   
   

2. Prioritise Self-Care and Health: The importance of self-care, a realisation that became personal after I was diagnosed with a rare, lifelong autoimmune condition back in 2024. I previously worked at the NHS at a high pace and struggled to do "mediocre" work, but realised the necessity of taking a day off without guilt, as nothing changes when returning to work. Founders must keep themselves healthy, both mentally and physically, as the job is challenging. 

   
   

3. Delegate smartly: My initial impression of entrepreneurship was that it would be easier than my previous role as a consultant psychiatrist, but actually it’s so much harder. Being a sole business owner requires one to handle all aspects, including selling and finance. You've got to love learning. It's been a huge learning curve and I enjoy that part. I enjoy the creativity and honing new skills but do play to your strengths and delegate smartly.

   
   

4. Say yes to things that make your heart sing - I always make time for a holiday, a break to recharge and reset. The Sisterhood Rickshaw Rally 2026 was quite the experience. Imagine driving and navigating a 1,200-kilometer coast-to-coast route from Chennai to Goa with two women you’ve just met. In a tuk tuk. Frequent vehicle breakdowns, dangerous driving conditions, and living off adrenalin was how we rolled. India is always full colour and the kindness and enthusiasm from the locals did not disappoint. There’s nothing more cheering than dancing to Bollywood tunes on the hard shoulder of the highway with a random family and their prized tuk tuk.” 

We brew coffee once and then it's deemed a waste. We're throwing away something that we've literally just put hot water through. Over 90% of the original ingredients in the bean remain, a product that is high in; fibre, protein, minerals, antioxidants, and sugars. Essentially, we're pouring money down the drain. 

Used coffee grounds are actually a valuable resource. Especially when we need to be more circular in the way that we approach business. We can't keep depleting the planet, we need to be reusing, reusing, reusing wherever we can. And coffee waste is a perfect example of that. We can do so many things with it by extracting different elements for example; it's a fuel, you can make paper, you can make ink, you can make packaging, you can use it for flavouring, you can put it into foods. 

Part of the issue is the connotations of the term waste, it isn't perceived very well. We wouldn’t put it on the label of our gin that is distilled from waste coffee grounds. Language matters; “repurposed”, “transformed” or “upcycled” are more palatable. We need to reframe it as another resource and not a waste product.

Does it matter where the coffee grounds are from? 

“People did ask me this at the beginning, would you only collect from coffee shops that had ethical sources of coffee? To tackle the waste problem at scale you can't be that fussy about where coffee comes from because it's all got potential to be reused. We are open to anybody who wants to be engaged in our programme. Every coffee ground is useful. 

Behind the scenes we do a lot of research and development to keep innovating and we need coffee grounds for that. Anything that's surplus every month goes to a process called anaerobic digestion (AD). For those who are new to this, it's converted into methane and then that methane generates renewable energy and fertilizer. The beauty for us is that the plant is in Cardiff Bay so the energy is generated in Wales and for the Welsh grid. And we know from working with the AD plant that every four and a half kilograms of our coffee grounds will generate a kilowatt of energy and that powers a laptop for about 20 hours. So our coffee breaks are generating electricity. It's really tangible. Last month alone we sent 10 tonnes to our AD plant.

Another important point here without getting too scientific, is that the chemical composition of the grounds can actually inhibit anaerobic digestion. So, a process called co-feed is required so you use a ratio of coffee grounds to food waste and you actually boost the amount of electricity generated. More bang for your buck. 

Some of the big waste carriers take food waste, including coffee grounds, long distances to their own AD plants (because they want to generate electricity for themselves) and they're putting a huge carbon footprint out to do that.”

You must have quite a few Eureka moments when a brilliant solution meets a market need. Tell us more: 

“There's one or two that we can talk about. I'm looking more into the agricultural benefits of coffee grounds, which there are a lot. For example Envar in England creates a soil improver from coffee grounds, for farmers. I am always on the look out for the gaps in innovation rather than replicating what’s out there. We have developed a slug and snail deterrent which includes our recycled or repurposed coffee grounds. That's completely made in Wales from byproducts. It's lanolin which is from the sheep wool industry combined with sawdust which holds the coffee grounds and then another secret ingredient is added to make a pellet. The texture and smell deters the snails. This holds the coffee grounds for about three months before degrading into the soil. So it's a soil improver as well. All natural, safe for pets, wildlife and children. 

There's a commercial company which I can mention called BioExtractions based in Tredegar Wales who have managed to extract the oil from the coffee grounds for us. Now other people have done this to use in food as a palm oil alternative, or in personal care, however, we want to apply that oil to a completely different industry. In collaboration with Cardiff University we´re looking at some compelling new propositions. We've had proof of concept so to speak but it needs a lot more work on it. We're just applying for a grant for that. So there's always hypotheses being explored in our R&D workstreams and they're all at different stages. Obviously some don't go anywhere but that's all part of the experiment and the bit I truly, truly love. The ambition is to one day hire a CEO, then I could just be the scientific mind behind the new products.”

We know from working with Bluestone that Wales is home to some trailblazing sustainable solutions. Why do you think it’s happening in Wales? 

“We're a small country. When I worked as a Consultant Psychiatrist, I specialised in addictions and actually there were probably less than ten people across Wales that worked in that area. So we knew each other.  And it's a little bit like that when it comes to leaders in sustainability. We have a good community of circular economists. There’s a smaller number of key decision makers and more things get done because of that. 

Cardiff Met run the CEIC (Circular Economy Innovation Communities) programme which I've been on and is hugely useful for businesses transitioning to or starting out with circular practices. I recently spoke at their annual conference. We have our Future Generations Act which maps out where we need to get to. Welsh government is really keen for businesses to have a carbon reduction plan and have free training available to support this. Yeah there’s good momentum in Wales. Although, it’s less about nationality, I'm English after all, it’s about building communities.  We partner locally when it makes sense which sometimes makes things harder because I have to put calls out to find out if there’s anybody doing this in Wales before exploring further afield. The charity that we support is a national Welsh homelessness charity; Llamau.  

Wales have really stuck their neck out and included glass in the deposit return scheme that is currently being debated. It’s actually going to cause quite a few problems because it's different from England and Scotland. How it's going to work if you send product across the border into England and Scotland? We’ve packaged our drinks in a paper bottle thanks to the revolutionary work of frugalpac. We are the first Welsh drinks brand to adopt this eco packaging. 

We´re still a niche brand and there’s much to be done to challenge the category leaders. 

For our gin, vodka and aperitif brand (Aperoffi) we’ve created delicious beverages by repurposing a waste product. This is a real craft and an interesting story to land. I’d be keen to create a multi-media marketing and communications campaign that rivalled the household names and used the medium as the messenger. For example, there's lower carbon ways to produce and plan ads, so we’d ensure that’s part of the mix. Imagine what we could build out of coffee grounds on the ground to make a thumb stopping statement. We’re always on the look out for brand ambassadors and allies who are aligned with our values. And if Gillian Anderson can be the Chief Compliments Officer for M&S, maybe she’d be up for creating new cocktails with her intriguing ‘G Spot’ drinks brand? I really feel I've got this wonderful baby that I'm a custodian of, and it deserves a seat at the table.” One that has a mouth watering menu with well considered cocktails… 

“APEROFFI, our Welsh APERitif blended with upcycled cOFFI (the Welsh for coffee!) It's got a coffee kick to it. You could drink that just as a normal Spritz, you know, with its 3-2-1. So three prosecco, two Aperoffi, and one club soda. Finish with a twist of fresh orange and coffee beans. That's sunshine in a glass.

I would drink our gin in a classic Negroni because of the coffee notes in it. Negroni, as you may know, is quite bitter with Campari and sweet vermouth so it pairs nicely. 

Our vodka is literally made for an Espresso Martini. The coffee notes are already distilled into the vodka and you could say it’s a double espresso of a martini delight.” 

Cheers to that. If you’d like to discover more about Grounds for Good, head here. If you’d like to find out more about how to build your brand for good, contact Melissa here: melissa.fretwell@whitecamino.com .