Product Development & Life Cycle Tracking

We believe that all of the passion that goes into bringing our coffee from farms across the globe to cups in and around Milwaukee should be represented visually. We also know that true coffee-geeks wear their passion for their favorite beverage with pride. In 2013, we began to invest heavily in our design and merchandise. We wanted the visual quality of our packaging and branding to match the quality of our coffee. Additionally, we wanted to equip our employees, partners, and customers with apparel and merchandise to help them celebrate their deep affinity for coffee.

At the end of 2022, we took an important step to ensure that all of the apparel and merchandise we sell in our cafes meets our ethical standards for environmental and social sustainability. As a certified B Corporation, this level of care and intentionality is congruent with our commitment to consider the earth and our global community as stakeholders of our operations. 

Each product we launch comes with a detailed supplier audit and product life cycle guide. Before we select a supplying partner, we first review their operations, affiliations, reputation, and their environmental & social commitments. We will prioritize working with fellow B Corporations and businesses that have specific, transparent give-back commitments as part of their operations.

We also do a product-specific review. We want to make sure we understand where the raw materials for our products came from and under what conditions they were manufactured. Finally, we also want to be intentional in guiding our customers on how to further utilize or dispose of our products when they’ve reached the end of their conventional life cycle. All of these specifications, data points, and recommendations can be viewed on our merchandise product pages in the Environmental & Social Impact tab. 

In an effort to visually represent this work within our physical cafe spaces, many products come with an additional sticker to help communicate why we chose to sell that particular product. These stickers call out if the product was made by a B Corporation, and/or the product was made with organic or recycled materials. Keep your eyes open for these indicators on your next visit to a Stone Creek Coffee cafe.

Additionally, our price stickers include QR codes that link to our digital product pages as an additional step to bring transparency to your shopping experience. This allows our retail customers to quickly access product specifications and life cycle information. We’re proud of the steps we’ve taken and look forward to collaborating more with other great artists and companies to create coffee-centric products that are truly good for our customers, communities, and planet.