We remain focused on our vision to ensure sustainable practices in our economic, environmental, and relational interactions for our community and beyond.
Supporting our vision includes responsible sourcing of speciality coffees from seed to cup and inspires us to continually evaluate, explore and update our sustainability efforts.
Coffee is the most heavily traded commodity in the world after petroleum. Yet ensuring sustainability for speciality coffee growers, usually small family farmers across the Coffee Belt growing region, and their communities is often an oversight of this coffee boom. Subsequently, many can barely afford their basic needs. This oversight threatens the continued availability of the high quality speciality coffees you enjoy along with the livelihoods of those supported by these small family farms.
Therefore, we intentionally source our coffees to maximize sustainability for family farmers, reflect respect for our earth, and build community across our coffee lineup. You can learn more about our Fair Trade USA certified beans here. Then, add your support to ours by taking home a few bags of our organic & Fair Trade coffees.
Partner with Vienna Coffee Company Initiatives
Across our company, VCC takes our commitment seriously to support the sustainability of our natural resources. From our large-scale efforts to source and offer Fair Trade USA certified coffees, to recycling our cardboard, and sourcing special recyclable coffee bags, we strive daily to tread as lightly as possible on our planet by incorporating actions of sustainability into our business practices.
In response to Earth Day’s 2022 call to Invest in Our Planet, VCC invites our community to partner with our REDUCE / REUSE / RECYCLE sustainability initiatives.
Check out how you can REDUCE waste at the Vienna Coffee House or REUSE several byproducts and scraps from operations at our Coffee House and Roastery so we can keep them out of our community’s waste stream!
at the Vienna Coffee House
Do you have a favorite travel mug? Bring it with you to the Coffee House and claim your discount on drip coffee from the coffee bar every time you visit (If you need a new favorite mug, check out our Vienna travel mugs at the Coffee House or online here).
with Vienna Coffee Company Roastery
GARDENING, COMPOSTING, ANIMAL BEDDING… AND MORE!
Our Roastery also offers free coffee grounds, wooden pallets, and coffee chaff (yes, free!). As these items are available, we leave them for pickup outside the Roastery (check the lower level of our Maryville location beside the Roastery and our outside porch). Please help yourself to the pallets stacked against the wall, the bagged chaff, or coffee-ground buckets (please return buckets to be refilled). Inquire in person at the Vienna ORNL counter for availability at that location.
We already have several enlightened customers who benefit from these VCC byproducts and scrap. So, we want to let all of you in on several not-so-secret uses for coffee grounds, pallets, and coffee chaff.
Coffee Grounds
“Coffee Grounds” are the byproduct of brewing ground coffee beans.
While often considered a waste product, coffee grounds actually present a wide range of REUSE possibilities. Here are a few articles that take the coffee grounds out of the waste stream and beyond the compost pile:
Coffee grounds: Skin scrubs, dyes, cleaners, and more ~MedicalNewsToday
Coffee Grounds and Composting ~ Oregon State University
Pallets
“Wooden pallets” typically consist of three or four stringers that support deck boards, on top of which the goods are placed.
With a few woodworking skills in hand, ideas for the REUSE of wooden pallets are endless with a simple search of the internet (Have you heard of Pinterest and YouTube?!). To save you a search, here are a couple of links, but feel free to search for yourself:
10 Easy and Cheap Pallet Furniture Ideas ~ Homedit on YouTube
Uses for old pallets ~ Pinterest
Coffee Chaff
Chaff (also known as silverskins or husk) is the epidermis of coffee beans that falls off during roasting due to the application of heat.
This byproduct of roasting is light and fluffy in texture. The most practical REUSE of chaff is to mix it with compost or fertilizer… and apparently, tomatoes, in particular, benefit highly from its high nitrogen content.
What You Can Do with Coffee Chaff – Don’t Waste the Waste! ~ CoffeeExtraction.com
Zero waste: What is chaff & how can specialty roasters reuse it? ~ Mtpak.coffee
Burlap or Recycled Jean coffee bags
Green beans arrive at our Roastery in sturdy burlap sacks from across the Coffee Belt growing region. These sacks are already popular with many crafters and gardeners for their multipurpose uses. For a nominal fee, they are available from our Roastery to take home for these uses and more:
Five cool ways to upcycle old coffee sacks ~ from Popular Science
at the Vienna Coffee House
As we emphasized before, VCC continually strives to be a responsible steward of our resources throughout the Coffee House and Roastery. Whenever possible we seek responsible methods to REDUCE / REUSE / RECYCLE within our operations. We consistently recycle cardboard at the Coffee House & Roastery (and we get plenty of it!). Additionally, we proudly source our recyclable 12 oz coffee bags from Savor Brands and our 2lb fully recyclable bags from Tricorbraun.
These bags provide you with the opportunity to return empty Vienna Coffee Co. bags & metal tie tins to the designated recycle boxes at the Coffee House. For information on returning your VCC bags to recycle, please Click Here. We gladly ship them off to be processed once our recycle boxes are full.
Since we source bags specifically designed to be recycled, we cannot guarantee that other coffee brands source the same way. So please limit what you place into our recycle boxes to Vienna Coffee Co. bags.
Vienna coffee runs on solar!
We’ve taken our commitment to sustainability to new heights - literally! We’re thrilled to announce that our entire operation, both Roastery and Coffee House, are now fully solar-powered. By installing cutting-edge solar panels on our rooftop, we're not just brewing exceptional coffee; we're doing it with a conscience. Now, every sip of your favorite roast isn't just delicious, it's powered by the sun!
This investment in solar energy aligns with our vision to ensure sustainable practices with environmental stewardship and community responsibility. Every cup you enjoy from us is now served with a side of renewable energy. We’ve significantly reduced our carbon footprint while continuing to deliver premium craft coffee experiences. Join us on our adventure towards a greener future, one delicious cup at a time. Because, as always, “Great Coffee is an Adventure.”
Check below to see how much energy we are creating and how much CO2 Emission we’ve saved by going solar in REAL-TIME!
Creating Partnership for the Planet
At VCC, we strongly feel that these initiatives reinforce our focus be a market leader in craft coffee throughout the southeast by providing an excellent coffee experience. We are proud to base our business in and be an active supporter of our hometown community in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains.
We hope that our efforts, along with yours, will help us ensure the continued sustainability of the natural resources of our beautiful piece of East Tennessee and extends across the globe.
