Melbourne’s Good Edi turns two with its first pop-up store

Edible coffee cup brand Good Edi has unveiled its first-ever pop-up retail store in order to help Australians to eat, drink and consume more sustainably, with its founders inviting Melbourne coffee lovers and foodies to join them as they celebrate all things eco-friendly, delicious and women-founded this week.

As part of Good Edi’s second birthday celebration, the startup, which was founded by Aniyo Rahebi and Catherine Hutchins in 2021, will be hosting a pop-up store, panel discussion, and party this week.

From Tuesday, July 25 to Friday, July 28, Melbourne locals will be invited to head to the pop-up at zero-waste Collingwood cafe Into Coffee for some local bites and limited-edition drinks, with the opportunity to purchase Good Edi edible cups.

Limited edition drinks on offer include affogato with KORI plant-based Ice-cream, hot chocolate with Planut Goods cashew, almond, hazelnut base, or a Waffly Latte.

Melbourne locals who want to join in the celebrations can also head to the Good Edi birthday party and panel discussion, which will be held on Thursday, July 27 from 5.30pm at the cafe.

For Good Edi’s founders – who came up with the idea for an edible coffee cup during a lunchtime walk after passing several bins overflowing with disposable drink cups and wanted to use their collective 20 years in the food processing business for good – the two-year anniversary feels like a dream.

Through about 100 trial recipes, they developed a plastic-free, vegan waffle takeaway cup made from high-quality natural ingredients, including a bran blend, rye, wheat, oat, sugar, coconut oil and salt, all free from artificial preservatives.

The cup can hold a cup of hot coffee or tea for about 40 minutes and won’t leak a cold drink, such as a smoothie, for about eight hours.

For drinkers who don’t want to eat their cup, the product also breaks down naturally in under two weeks, which the founders say is faster than banana skin.

The pair was able to get operations underway thanks in part to winning $50,000 in prize money from winning the 2020 Taronga Zoo HATCH Accelerator award, and then going on to secure over $150,000 in crowdfunding and seed investment.

Co-founder Aniyo Rahebi told SmartCompany that the customer response to the edible coffee cups over the last two years had been overwhelmingly positive.

“We are so proud of everything we have achieved and the last two years have been an amazing journey for us. We have created a solution to a problem, and it’s something you can eat, and we work with ethical Australian suppliers to source our ingredients,” she says.

“There’s no doubt takeaway cups are handy. But we were shocked to find out that 2.7 million of them are finding their way into landfills each day in Australia. That’s an estimated one billion every year.

“This is our first pop-up and we are looking forward to seeing how it goes.”

Rahebi added that Good Edi isn’t advertising on any platforms.

“It’s all about genuine messaging,” she says.

Hutchins says the founders felt their solution to the pressing issue needed to be waste-free, and “not just shift the problem elsewhere”.

“So, we developed a delicious edible cup, and we made sure it was done in Australia with locally and ethically sourced ingredients,” she told SmartCompany.

As part of the Good Edi retail pop-up, the brand is also partnering with a number of other like-minded brands, including PLANUT milk bases, BABY Pink Gin, Molly Rose Brewing Co, Capi tonic, Kori Icecream, Mount Zero Olives, Nuffin dips, Single Use Ain’t Sexy, I am Grounded bars, The Hidden Sea wine and Yes You Can drinks.