mia&noa coffee experience draws demand

When mia&noa’s cofounder Maren Knief Clerc identified the need to eliminate all single use material in coffee consumption, this was for two main reasons, sustainability and hygiene. In the tiny country of Switzerland alone, 8 million cups go to the garbage bin every day and this does not include tons of mono-doses of sugar, cream and stirrers produced, transported and thrown out, oftentimes without even being used! On top of being polluting, the self-service counters with single use materials are a contamination hazard. Especially in the light of the pandemic, customers have an increased sensitivity towards hand hygiene and viral contamination, enhancing the zero-contact trend that mia&noa had already identified prior to Covid.

Using extraordinary coffee quality as one of the main arguments, the Geneva based start-up aims to generate a change in consumer behavior towards the use of reusable cups. In return for making the “effort” of bringing your own cup, customers receive a freshly grinded and brewed organic fairtrade coffee with a choice of fresh local milk and oat milk, prepared and dispensed by a Willie Wonkerish design coffee bar, which is completely assembled in Switzerland.

Since its launch in 2020, the mia&noa cousin founders have developed a full b2c and b2b operating system and IT-platform. B2c customers love mia&noa for the convenience of the process and for the coffee quality. Once you have saved your favorite coffees they are available on-line and off-line, so there is literally nothing left to do but put your cup and scan in order to get your favorite drink. The codes can also be sticked to the cup, so you need only your cup to consume. The sustainability and hygiene of the zero-waste and zero-contact process, also plays a major role of course. B2b customers love the availability of life reporting, life inventory and digitalized operating procedures. The IT-Backoffice provides them with full insight on consumption behavior that is not available with other solutions designed for caterers.

As a result, mia&noa revenues are growing steadily. The Geneva startup has five coffee bars up and running, of which two are already operated by large multisite operators. Two of their coffee bars are located in educational institutes, with more to come. The startup has 3700 active customers and revenues have grown at 198% compared to the same period last year.

Ambitions to match growing demand

Currently raising its first growth round, the startup has been selected in the Newchip Accelerator Program in the US. In the future, the company intends to grow mia&noa also as a white label solution which can be used by national and international coffee players that already have a coffee brand, but who would like to be able to propose a highly qualitative and sustainable automated consumption process. The growth funds will help it invest into the IT-platform and the team to support this growth. Next steps are to further densify its presence locally in order to become self-sustained and to develop the platform for growth, both as a franchisor and as a white-label solution. The startup has also developed different sizes of its coffee bars that can be deployed in different corporate structures.

(ES)