Coffee manufacturers pay millions to dispose of waste that still holds most of its value. Helen Zhang built a company on that gap. She is CEO and Founder of Coffee Elf Inc., which pulls oil from commercial coffee grounds to make a premium emollient for hair care and skincare, and presses grounds with cork and peanut shell into vegan leather for promotional merchandise. Helen traces the path from a kitchen project at Columbia that nearly set off her neighbors' smoke complaints to early commercial partners, and to donating profit back to nonprofits serving women coffee farmers in Kenya, Ethiopia and Colombia.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Green Shoots and Big Shifts

00:54 Meet Helen Zhang and what Coffee Elf does

01:43 The kitchen project that nearly burned down an apartment

03:16 Discovering coffee's hidden chemical value

03:47 Coffee waste as a commercial problem

04:54 Growing up in an entrepreneurial family

07:16 The bigger vision: a waste to value engine

09:37 Inside the product line: emollient and vegan leather

12:08 Replacing palm oil with coffee oil

13:16 Giving back to women coffee farmers

17:00 Material innovation beyond plastic

18:38 Safety, silicones and clean beauty

20:35 Milestones ahead: hair care and the ASI supply chain

22:00 How to partner with Coffee Elf

24:24 Sustainability and profitability together

28:22 Advice for founders building in this field

30:46 One word to leave listeners with

Learn more about Coffee Elf Inc.:

Website - https://thecoffeeelf.com

Follow the host, Reetu Gupta here:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guptareetu/