Aussie reusable cup company Huskee acquired by sustainable packaging company BioPak

A Sydney-based reusable cup company that has sold 5 million cups since launching seven years ago has been acquired by Australian B Corp and sustainable packaging company BioPak for an undisclosed sum.

Huskee was founded in 2017 by Saxon Wright and Adrian Chen, with the company sourcing coffee husks – a waste product from the production of coffee – to create its modular, reusable HuskeeCup. The range later expanded to include the HuskeeRenew and HuskeeSteel.

With the ink on the partnership between Huskee and BioPak now dry, Wright says Huskee wants to be the largest reuse company in the world. 

“At this stage, we can’t disclose because the other parties haven’t publicly released this information,” Wright told SmartCompany when asked about the sale price of the acquisition.

Huskee and BioPak, which was founded by Richard Fine and Gary Smith in 2006, completed the transaction at the beginning of April, however their initial conversations started about two years ago.

Wright will continue as CEO of Huskee, where he says the team will be “leading the charge on anything related to reuse and refill, from BYO cups to turn-key reuse solutions”. 

“This acquisition really frees us up to achieve the things we always set out to do, so for me personally, this is hugely exciting to be able to leverage the scale and resources of BioPak knowing that they are so keen to see reuse become mainstream,” he says. 

“Growing organically is great, however leveraged partnerships, rapid growth and international scale are really needed to catch vast opportunities that are in the market right now.”

Huskee as a team will remain independent, with its team of 25 remaining in place and likely doubling in size over the coming year or two.

Wright said Huskee will remain a standalone company and its team will operate independently. Huskee employs 25 employees and Wright expects the team will double in size over the next year or two. 

The acquisition means that the team will be “fully supported by BioPak”, says Wright, “leveraging things like logistics and warehousing to gain efficiencies”.

“It also means we can offer a complete solution to customers in a centralised form.

Bold ambition

Wright says Huskee is an incredibly ambitious company – for the sake of the planet. 

“So far we’ve sold around 5 million cups, hopefully a lot more to come,” he says. 

“Our goal is to rapidly expand our reuse systems into international markets and enable entire cities to embrace reuse.

“We want to work with small cafes to large corporates, from universities to council precincts. 

“We are in discussions with so many governments and agencies but we just haven’t had the resources, but now we do.”

The ultimate goal? To be “the largest reuse company in the world”, says Wright.  

“We’ve got some work to do, but a partnership like this propels us to that objective,” he says. 

BioPak itself is already active in this space, having launched its own not-for-profit initiative Compost Connect in 2018 in a bid to make composting more accessible in Australia and New Zealand.

On a national level, the federal government’s National Waste Policy Action Plan 2019 aims to reduce the total waste generated in Australia by 10% per person by 2030.

While some states are now phasing out takeaway coffee cups, Australians were estimated to be using and discarding 1.8 billion single-use cups every year according to the Australian Plastics Flows and Fates Study 2019–20.

Wright says one difficulty with reuse systems is they can be a cash drain up front and will only become cost-effective at scale.

“BioPak has so many customers in all sectors of the economy, so the ability to tap into their reach, and provide a complementary offering will give us a scale that makes reuse effective and affordable,” he says. 

“We need to provide a sensible transition to become more sustainable and more circular and so the combined offerings of both Huskee and BioPak create a compelling pathway for positive impact for businesses in any context.”