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IrisGO – Development of an innovative reusable coffee cup

Editorial

Für den Inhalt der Angaben zeichnet die Projektleitung verantwortlich.

Cooperation

Dieses von der Gebert Rüf Stiftung geförderte Projekt wird von folgenden weiteren Projektpartnern mitgetragen: Hochschule Luzern (HSLU); Smartup

Project data

  • Project no: GRS-019/19 
  • Amount of funding: CHF 150'000 
  • Approved: 14.01.2019 
  • Duration: 03.2019 - 10.2020 
  • Area of activity:  First Ventures, seit 2018

Project management

Project description

The problem of pollution caused by single-use coffee cups has sparked large medial, social and political interest. Starbucks, the largest coffee-provider in the world, uses 8000 disposable cups per minute. 1.6 million trees are cut down for the production of these single-use cups. Not only Starbucks has a problem. All providers of disposable cups are affected. Awareness of this environmental disaster has spread through society, politics and the economy. The solution to the problem does not lie in inventing new disposable products. As awareness is raising within society, the development of reusable products with a long lifespan moves to the center of attention.
All existing reusable coffee cups suffer from the same problems. They do not ensure a high-quality drinking experience and in some cases even cause harm for the consumer. Also, due to their small openings the aroma cannot escape the cups properly and a maximum level of enjoyment is rendered impossible. Drinking out of a spout is also considered as reducing the quality of the drinking experience. Reusable coffee cups are made to refill. The next disadvantage of existing competitor's products is that it takes too long to open and close these cups. This causes frustration if you are in a hurry, which happens to be a likely scenario, considering that they are mostly made for use on the go.
Furthermore, big companies reduce the price of the coffee when customers bring their own reusable cup. At the moment, almost nobody is acting on this incentive. One reason for that is that the advertisement for refill reduction is next no zero. Also, the existing reusable cups are not lifestyle products. It's not very cool to have one. We want to change this mindset with our product. We want to launch a cup which is perfectly suited for the refill-usage and enables an excellent drinking experience. Finally, we want to design a lifestyle product which is exciting to have, and which can become a hyped product and therefore be deemed as a must have product. The only way to move away from the environmentally damaging disposable cups, is that reusable cups become a hyped lifestyle product.

What is special about the project?

There is a large supply of reusable cups but none of them guarantees for an optimal drinking experience. Also, those cups are not suited for a quick refill and only allow for insufficient handling.
Our product will offer the best possible drinking experience thanks to a unique seal and will reliably serve users needs under all circumstances. Another special feature is the planned interactive advertisement surface on the seal. This is supposed to give large organizations the possibility of creating new impulses in their communication strategy. Also, it will be possible for private customers to personalize their cups by choosing custom designs for the advertisement space.

Status/Results

The development of the IRISgo cup is completed. In a next step the IRISgo cups will be produced in Switzerland. In order to finance the production of the cups we have conducted a crowdfunding campaign. The worldwide crowdfunding campaign was a big success. We raised more than 160k CHF, sold more than 3500 cups and gained 2000 new customers. All this resulted in more than 15 press releases about us. The successful campaign has financed the production of the IRISgo cups. We are very happy that we will soon be able to hold the finished IRISgo cup in our hands and deliver it to our customers worldwide.

Media

Diverse Medienberichte in der Schweiz und International.

Links

Persons involved in the project

Fabian Christmann, project manager
Oliver Feusi
Manuel Borer
Daniel Fässler
Ramon Späti

Last update to this project presentation  24.11.2022