CLEVELAND — Aleksandra Brankov was on a winter trip to Canada when she first came up with the idea for her business: Cafilia, a platform that provides membership to local coffee shops while eliminating cup waste.
On the trip, she noticed her friends using reusable mugs instead of plastic foam cups, causing her to begin thinking about how to use a reusable cup like theirs to support area coffee shops. She began brainstorming, starting market research in 2019 to learn more about the coffee industry and consumption habits.
"I asked in my survey a question: 'What keeps you from going out to local coffee shops more often?'" she told us. "And the No. 1 answer across all the different survey channels I did locally and nationally was that sometimes, local coffee shops are harder to find than the chains. And so I figure, 'If I can help people find local coffee shops, discover them easier, and help them manage their coffee spending better — save a little bit of money along the way and be more sustainable — [it] sounded like a great business idea,' and it had a ton of potential."
Brankov pursued the plan, ultimately launching Cafilia in five Cleveland coffee shops during the summer of 2020. She came up with the name Cafilia from the Greek "philia," which she interprets as meaning a form of love or friendship.
Brankov says that root seemed fitting, as she views coffee and coffee shops as a means to connect people and bring them together over a love of coffee. The first syllable of the word is meant to allude to cafes or coffee.
Here's how the subscription service works, per Brankov:
"They buy their monthly coffee plan and they choose two different things: They choose how many cups of coffee they want to go out for per month in local coffee shops — between 5, 10, 15, or 20 cups. Then they also choose if they are more of a drip person or espresso or crafted coffee person. Those two elements make up their plan, and then they receive their Cafilia cup, and that's what acts as their coffee wallet in the sense of they take their cup with them to any of the local coffee shops that we curate, that are part of our network to get their coffee redeemed from their monthly subscription."
Brankov says Cafilia helps members support and discover local coffee shops, better budget their coffee spending, and be more sustainable while drinking coffee.
"If you drink two coffees a week out, you will throw away over a hundred cups per year," she explained. "And that's just you as one person."
There are now more than 30 coffee shops across Northeast Ohio in the Cafilia network, including locations in Cleveland, Kent, Cuyahoga Falls, Lakewood, and beyond. Brankov says it's a "no brainer" for shops to participate.
"We help bring them extra foot traffic," she added. "It brings them other upselling opportunities, gives them visibility from being part of our network and the marketing that we do, and it helps them save costs actually, too."
Matt Ashton's shop, Lekko Coffee in Ohio City, is a partner. He believes supporting local coffee shops, rather than big chains, can help support neighborhoods and keep money within local communities. He says one challenge coffee shops face is the prevalence of those chains, which can be easier for people to find and access over neighborhood spots.
"It could be the at-home Maxwell House, it could be the daily trips to a Starbucks or a Dunkin, and so to get more foot traffic into more local shops is always the goal,” he said. “We're just trying to grow the market share in craft coffee and local craft coffee, and doing that helps all of us. So [Brankov's] idea of a way to tie that all together with a reusable cup that lessens all of our waste across the board seemed really exciting to us."
Lekko displays a Cafilia cup in its store, which Ashton says can prompt questions from customers.
"We get to kind of point them in the direction of, 'Yeah, we definitely like it,'" Ashton noted. "We think, 'You're not throwing away a paper cup every single day,' and it's really easy to prepay for coffees and just come in with your cup and be done. You don't have to deal with anything at point of sale, which is awesome."
Brankov says Cafilia plans to expand into Columbus this winter, with the hope of growing into other cities throughout the region, and eventually, throughout the country.