New cooperation partner for Bean United

Bean United's social office coffee business is facing new challenges in the age of the home office. Now there is a new cooperation partner that is supported by the proceeds: the program school ReDi, which supports refugees.

Germans drink three cups of coffee a day in the office - preferably while working, not during breaks. The start-up Bean United makes a living from this consumption: it sells coffee to the offices of companies such as Adobe or SalesForce. The special thing about this coffee is that every kilo of coffee sold finances ten meals in Burundi. The partner is Welthungerhilfe, to which Bean United donates 2.50 euros per kilogram. Now Bean United has gained a new partner: the ReDi School of Digital Integration, a non-profit programming school aimed at refugees. They are provided with mentors and equipped with technical devices. Locations so far are Berlin, Düsseldorf and Munich, but the offer is also available online.

Bean United not only wants to give to the programming school, but also explicitly give a portion of its revenue to the ReDi School's Digital Women Program. "As a social business, Redi School is an absolute high flyer in the IT and tech sector, with dozens of top companies as partners and customers," Handelsblatt

Bean Units social coffee has been around since 2018 and customers have been loyal, yet the home office period has been one of the hardest for the start-up. Revenues plummeted by a tenth and the annual goal of half a million funded meals in Burundi failed. Before the crisis, we were in negotiations with numerous large companies, especially airlines, hotels and car manufacturers," says Thomas Greulich. But all negotiations failed, according to his own information.

With the new partner, a new incentive is created to order the coffee for coming times at Bean United already now. ReDi calculates that through a company that employs 3000 people, ten women could receive a year's worth of support from the school. Together, the school and Bean United aim to facilitate 100 IT apprenticeships for women. The start-up believes in its social coffee concept: "We are attractive to companies that want to do something for their employees and for a better world," says Greulich.