Can you tell us who you are and what you do?
My name is Jonas and I am a co-founder and CEO at Prolog Coffee.
So, what inspires you at your work in Prolog?
Very much thinking about how we can create better coffee experiences for people in general. That is pretty much what we do all the time and investigate that. Both on the coffee side, but also on the experience side. And that is just, an infinitely interesting journey to be on. You can imagine it involves so many things. Everything from process optimization to how we can make this coffee taste a little bit better. And we believe that whilst the world becomes more and more optimized, and efficient, there's also going to be a bigger demand for just great moments during the day. It could be a cup of coffee with some friends. It could also be a beer. We believe that there is a need for that. It is not only nutrition for the body, of course, but it's also nutrition for the soul in that sense.
How do you practice responsibility through your work?
We practice responsibility by looking at the three known bottom lines being the financial bottom line, the social bottom line and the environmental bottom line. They are all intertwined, meaning that you cannot really provide social, and to a certain degree, environmental, responsibility if you don't have the financial basis to do that on.
In that sense, our goal is to be able to create coffee experiences of such a high value that basically we will spill that value over into environmental and social impact.
How do you practice environmental and social responsibility?
There are many things to be done both on the environmental side and the social side of the coffee industry. Speaking of the social side, there is a whole value chain of coffee, which is interesting. One of the concrete things we are looking at right now is, not only looking at the price we pay for the coffee, but also the productivity of the coffee farmers.
There are places in the world where the problem is not so much that you are not paid enough as a coffee farmer, but your production is not yielding enough, and that is the limiting factor for the social sustainability in these areas.
Then, on the other end of the value chain, you have the barista work, which is not where you earn the most money, most places. In a lot of places you do not get pension. This is one of the things we were able to introduce last year for our full time staff.
And then on the environmental side of things, first and foremost we look at optimizing our systems processes in a way where we have primarily minimum GHG emissions output. Some years ago we introduced a zero waste program, which we have been trying to implement as far as we could. There is still work to be done, but we have eliminated quite a lot of waste. Our biggest emissions come from green coffee and the second largest is in milk, and both of which, we cannot just simply eliminate.
So all our milk we get from a small farm outside of Copenhagen where the milk is produced in a in a more like, traditional way where the cows have more area to so grass on and I don't know exactly what the impact is in terms of GHG emissions there compared to conventional milk production but there's definitely some, some benefits such as sequestering carbon, and how animal friendly it is.
Is there anything else you are currently looking at in terms of more environmentally sustainable coffee production?
There are two ways to mitigate the emissions from green coffee, one of which is CO2 neutral coffee production, which has been done in Costa Rica, amongst other places. The other thing would be carbon capturing, which we are also looking at different options for.
So what's your favorite way to drink coffee?
I think my favorite way to drink coffee has changed over time. Before I was very focused on the flavor and spent a lot of time contemplating the flavors. Today I focus more on the energy which the coffee gives me. I do not think too much about the flavor and taste, but I can just feel immediately if it kind of nourishes me, mentally or physically and almost like, spiritually. You can really taste the difference from coffee to coffee if the energy that is put into it nourishes you.
What's your favorite spot in Copenhagen?
I am thinking of everything from the sea, or the harbor or the fact you are able to jump into the sea. I really like Prolog. There are always friends and staff there. I really like some of the good bookstores. I think that is kind of where I am drawn to in my recreational time. Just going around looking at all the books I am not reading but wish I had more time for.
