Cupable turns 2

Little over 2 years ago, the world started realising the ill effects of pollution and that climate change was real. We are talking about a time when Game of Thrones was still running and people were still using those dirty flimsy plastic/paper cups to drink beverages from.

We turn 2 this week. And boy, a lot of things have changed. As we transition from the sustainable cup company to making sustainability convenient for billion consumers, we’re doing a #ThrowbackThursday of sorts – or good old-fashioned nostalgia for those of us who aren’t millennials.

Cue the trumpets! Here’s a round of things you didn't know about us -

1. Back in 2018, We took advantage of India's ban on single-use plastics and kickstarted our journey by selling them reusable cups instead of the single-use ones. To be honest, None of us imagined the problem to be so big.

1. We actually started operating under "Stallion Barware" for the first 6 months of research and business development and eventually transitioned into "Recube" by May 2019
2. By mid-2019, We already had over 10 retaining clients and helped around 5 music festivals become cleaner.
3. We added water refilling at events to increase our roaster which was an instant hit. This service helped us service 50 events by January 2020.

1. We clocked revenues of over US $600,000/- in our first year of operations itself
2. The pandemic made us realise that our business was perishable and we took it in our stride and came back stronger with a new line of service - "Refillable"

6. It took us 3 months to clock our first 100 refills but only 3 months more for 300 additional refills.

1. By the end of Dec 2020, We boasted a retention rate of 71% and had over 5 brands with 30 different products listed on our platform
2. To top it all, we were fortunate to win and be a part of Maharashtra Start Up Week, United Nation's Reboot the Ocean and Young Champions of the Earth, UnLtd, The Circular Innovation Jam, Greenpreneurs, Sankalp Awards, BudStart etc
3. In our 2 years of operations of Cupable and Refillable, We have helped over 150 brands divert more than 7MN single-use disposables from entering the landfill and this includes a global pandemic. So we're just getting started ;)

So what's next for Recube?

Looking back at what's happened in the past year has just made us realise that sustainable businesses require sustainable business models to work on. If you can create value, save the environment and build a profitable model - nothing can stop you. So that's exactly what's in store for us - creating regenerative systems for the betterment of the world.

A sneak peek into the future -

1. Crobo - A bottle made of polymerised crop waste, reducing over 70% of CO2 emissions

2. Collection Programme - What if we were to tell you that you can return any of our packagings back to us regardless of your geography by just scanning a QR Code?

3. Refill/Return Systems: These trucks will be in your areas sooner than you can imagine with a lot more of your favourite brands and not just restricted to home and personal care products ;)

To sum it up, We are working towards the idea of a world wherein there is no waste. Yes, that's what we like to call our Moonshot project.

Our mission has always been pretty straightforward - Solve the single-use crisis. According to EMF's report in 2017, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, We want to eliminate this stat forever.

To all our users, our restaurant partners, our friends and our critics – thank you for being part of our journey, we wouldn’t be here without you. You make us who we are, and continue to inspire us to do better than yesterday, every single day.

Lastly, we continue to believe in the ‘1% done’ philosophy. We might have completed 735 days as a company, but we wish to make even more progress every day. And that thought makes us happy about the journey we’ve chosen for ourselves.

Here’s to many, many more years ahead.

PS: Recube is a social enterprise which aims to revolutionise the way we consume things. We create smart packaging systems to enable circular economy through reuse and refillable models.