Binocle Café’s Nano-Batch Operation in Quebec Serves Climate Concerned Citizens
May 8 - 2021
Coffee Geography Magazine
Binocle Café, a unique operation in Quebec supports the province’s first completely
carbon neutral coffee prospect. It’s also the province’s first “climate
positive” coffee, where the company has exceeded its emission targets twice
over from Carbone boréal, a greenhouse gas offset program and research
institute at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.
“We’re
not only neutral, we’re taking preventative actions toward the climate by
(avoiding the production of) twice the emissions we could be making,” explains
Binocle’s founder Iouri Philippe Paillé. “In a study we commissioned to get our
certification, we projected to produce 23 tonnes of emissions in our first year
of operation, so we decided to double our carbon
compensation to that of 46 tonnes.”
The
company do not compromise on the core principle of the production, whether it
was the farms where the coffee was sourced, how it’s imported, stored, or
roasted. Most commercial roasters run on gas and tend to emit CO2 during in the
process. Binocle’s Bellwether electric roaster produces small batch, around
five pounds of coffee every 20 minutes but enough to serve his climate
concerned clients in Quebec. Once they’re packaged in compostable bags, it can
then be shipped out by bike or electric car to anywhere in the Greater Montreal
region.
Bellwether Machine
“Our roasting is zero emission, our
deliveries are zero emission; we wanted to address what we could cut out on our
end first, and then we went through all the process of cutting all the
emissions, from the farm to the client,” Paillé says. “That’s been a big part
of the goals we wanted to achieve.”
A cofounder of the l’Équitable
student coffee shop at Cégep de Sherbrooke and a filmmaker of more than a
decade, Paillésays that this new company gives him a renewed sense of purpose
following the creation of the Le Ketch microbrewery in Gaspésie.
“I just had enough of advertising, I
didn’t feel like I was contributing to much in terms of my purpose in life,” he
says. “Even though I love movie-making and I had a lot of fun, I wanted to
create something that had a greater impact. Coffee’s been a passion for so many
years that it was a no-brainer to go that route.”
Bincole Café is now available for
delivery across the Greater Montreal region; orders can be placed via
cafebinocle.com.