ETHICS
Whether you're popping in for a cuppa at Wildflower Espresso, browsing Wildflower Space or nabbing a drop at wldflwr.com.au, the theme you'll find here at Wildflower is that people matter, you matter, and we want any interaction with Wildflower to change the world for the better.
That is not an exaggeration.
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Our mission is to do our absolute best to make all our products and services completely ethical and as sustainable possible. We aim to regularly, positively add to our ​people, our planet and our community
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We admit as a small business this is not always 100% possible, but we are constantly changing, adapting, improving and heading in the direction of a fully ethical and sustainable business.
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Practically here are a few ways we are doing this.
COFFEE
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We are proud to say that every aspect of our coffee has been refined to be as ethical and sustainable as possible.
Since the inception of Wildflower in 2019 we have used Glee Coffee Roasters to source our beans. Aside from Glee being a fellow small business on the Central Coast of Australia (yes they roast our beans 40 mins down the road) Glee has always used ethical practices in sourcing their coffee. Each of their farmers are known and traceable and most of the coffee mills are independently owned by a family or a co-operative of local businesses, they are partnered with multiple projects that work to ensure good environmental practises, environmental responsibility and social equality.
Glee Coffee Roasters are not only incredible in quality and taste they value humans the same way we do.
For the milk in our coffees we use an Australian invented machine called the Milk Juggler, The Milk Juggler automatically fills our milk jugs to the perfect amount for each individual coffee ensuring absolute minimal milk wastage (yeah its like actual magic).
The Milk Juggler also allows us to use 10L milk bladders rather than going through tonnes of plastic milk bottles, the invention of the Milk Juggler has reduced the use of 2L plastic milk bottles by 55,000,000 bottles and counting.
We have strongly encourage reusable cups at Wildflower, offering a 50c discount if you bring your own. We regularly see 20-30% of the coffee's we make going into reusable cups.
Our takeaway cups have always been not only recyclable but fully compostable ensuring that our landfill waste contribution is as small as possible.
Our milk is sourced from family owned Little Big Dairy Co. and Dairy Farmers using Australian Farmers and implementing their own sustainable practises focussing on the environment, people and animal welfare.
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APPAREL
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Since day one, Wildflower apparel has been ethically sourced and manufactured, the clothing industry is a challenging and expensive category to claim this achievement in but we work closely with our manufacturers to ensure that human rights and sustainability are the priority of our Apparel.
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Sustainability is equally a priority across our apparel. We work hard to minimise plastics and waste with our packaging and postage, using 100% compostable garment bags and mailers, plus recyclable packaging for every order.
We courier our parcels across Australia using Sendle who have committed to a neutral carbon footprint in their transport.
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We are excited to continue to grow in our ethical and sustainable practises with our apparel more and more as we grow as a business.
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COMMUNITY
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We are The Wildflowers Campaign
In 2020 during the global pandemic COVID-19 we flipped the script in our community. We changed our signage, marketing and phyiscally pushed back on all negativity entering our space, we gave out positive conversation starters and sold merchandise to promote positivity in a dark time for our planet.
We also encouraged our community to pay it forward for healthcare workers and thanks to our incredible communities work online and in store we were able to hand out over 700 coffees to our hard working healthcare workers.
The Newcastle Permanent wrote a really nice article on it HERE
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Brekky for the Bushfires
In January 2020 we partnered with fellow Wallsend family business Pettigrew Family Funerals and put on Brekky for the Bushfires.
Wildflower donated 100% of coffee profits and Pettigrew put on a BBQ brekky at Wildflower for people to buy bacon and egg rolls and donate. Pettigrew also SO generously doubled every dollar we made that day resulting in us raising $12,000 (yes, that is not a typo) for those fighting our bush fires on the frontline!
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1 Tee = 10 Trees
In March 2021 we sold a green embroidered tee called the 10 Trees Tee, our amazing community sold them out in under 12 hours and as a result we were able to make a donation to teamtrees.org and support reforestation by planting 365 trees across the globe.
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Ride For Sick Kids
In the first week of September 2021, We sponsored CEO of Ronald McDonald House Northern NSW Ross Bingham, who rode 500kms to raise money for Ride for Sick Kids/ Ronald McDonald House.
Ronald McDonald House give families of seriously ill children accommodation nearby the hospital so they can be close to their loved ones in some extremely hard times.
We raised $1165 by donating $1 from every coffee we sold on Saturday 11th September + accepting donations from our incredible Wildflower community.
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#TeamSeas
TeamSeas is an organisation created with the mission to take 30,000,000 pounds of garbage out of our oceans by the end of 2021, with every US dollar donated equating to 1 pound of rubbish taken from the ocean. On Saturday November 6th we donated $5 per reusable cup sold and $1 for every reusable cup used at Wildflower Espresso! We were able to raise and donate $311.
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LIVEfree Project Fundraiser
LIVEfree do incredible works all over Newcastle such as crisis food delivery, student mentoring and many other support programs for individuals that have gone through hardship or trauma. They are a truely amazing local charity.
LIVEfree project have used our space here in Wallsend during special days such as Mother/ Fathers Day to sell handmade goods and raise awareness and finances for their projects.
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Review Month
During the month of March 2024 we created/ hosted Wildflower Review Month.
Review Month is simply a month of encouraging people to visit and experience their local small businesses whether that be a butcher, hair dresser, cafe, artist, anything at all. If you had a great experience, than leave a great review. It's that simple.
As a small business ourselves we know how important it is to receive good reviews so it was so special to see Review Month encouraging tonnes of great reviews all over the country!
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Maryland & Fletcher Football Club Fundraiser
In February 2024 we dedicated a day to sponsoring one of our local junior football teams. We donated $1 from every coffee sold and $5 form every apparel/ lifestyle item and with a little donation top up we were able to send $1000 to MFFC.
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The Sunflower Sisters & R U OK?
In August 2024 we had the great honour of dedicating a Saturday to raise money for R U OK? via the Sunflower Sisters, a group of customers of the cafe turned Wildflower besties that tragically lost their friend to suicide earlier in the year.
The Sunflower Sisters committed to running the City to Surf (an event that their friend had signed up to) in 2024 raising money for R U OK? and more importantly spreading the message of "You are loved, you are not alone."
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COLLABORATIONS
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We absolutely love our community of businesses big and small, continuing to collaborate with other business is a way for us to expand our reach and keep building each other up, one of Wildflowers employee values is that We are customer focussed, not competitor focussed and partnering with other business is one of the greatest ways to show that!
So far we have partnered with this list below and we intend on adding to it regularly. If you know a business you would like to see us collaborate with please let us know or ask them to reach out!
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Collaborations:
