First of all, welcome to Cupko Canada and thank you very much for sharing our mission of eliminating single-use containers from our daily lives. With your support, we could all together dream of a cleaner planet.
Working in the events industry for almost 10 years now, I would like to introduce myself, Quentin Crouslé, French Canadian, former co-founder of Ecocup Quebec, and today founder of the first Canadian company of reusable cups and bottles: Cupko Canada.
It was in the summer of 2011 that the idea came to me. I participate in one of the biggest festivals in Montreal and notice that the barman has just transferred the can of beer I’d just ordered in a disposable cup! Make no-sens!
A few days later, a friend of mine in high school told me about his new startup; Original Cup. By searching for it on Google, I discovered among the results, Ecocup and the concept of deposit cups… What a great idea!
During Fall, I start to take steps to launch my business. I apply to the STA (Support for Self-Employed Workers), then begin the courses to carry out my business plan. Realizing very quickly that the starting cashdown to start manufacturing and washing cups is too important for me, I decided to contact 3 companies of reusable cups in Europe.
It was finally after several months that I received a positive response from Ecocup France. So I decided to go in France and meet them. Everything is going wonderfully well and we are concluding the agreement early 2013. A magnificent collaboration is starting for a very exciting project.
But, when we launched in 2013 summer, some festivals no longer pour the cans into cups, but begin to give the can directly to the client So don’t need cups anymore! Tough one!!
Finally, after a few years and a lot of determination, I succeeded to implant returnable cups in all the biggest festivals in the province of Quebec.
It was a great story, which unfortunately ended abruptly in early 2019 following a major divergence of vision for the development of Ecocup in Canada.
After a few months of break, it is with great pride that I relaunch myself in reusable products by creating Cupko Canada, a company that promotes local production and believes in a circular economy model closer to its community.
Unfortunately, the COVID19 pandemic came to disrupt our launch and prevented us from meeting you this summer, but we will do our best in the coming months to guide you in your questions regarding the future of reusable products during (and after) the pandemic.
We look forward to helping you to make your event more sustainable and to have a chance to raise our cups together.
Sustainably,
Quentin
