WoW Bites: Cork sustainable coffee company making waves

Taking inspiration from a great leader makes for an immediately strong start.

Sofia Kalfa and her husband, Anestis Spanos, did just that when they set up their sustainable coffee company, Fzin Coffee in 2021, right here in Cork.

The couple named their business after the ancient Greek visionary leader, Alexander the Great, who said his parents gave him ‘zin’ (the ancient Greek word for life), and his teacher, the philosopher Aristotle, taught him how to live an optimal life.

“The name represents a whole philosophy,” says Sofia. “The F is like a plus sign; the ability to live the life you have been given well.”

The couple are from Greece. Sofia hails from Envia, the second largest Greek island, and Anestis from near Athens.

At just 21 years old, after completing her first degree in hospitality management, Sofia left the aquamarine waters of the Mediterranean and came to Kinsale.

“I got a scholarship to come here for three months, practice my English, do some work experience. 23 years later, I’m still here!”

Sofia worked at the Trident Hotel, Kinsale, and was soon promoted to restaurant supervisor. She went on to study her second degree in business and moved into the world of the multinational corporate; first for Amazon, then Dell for a decade, and onto PepsiCo.

Another degree followed, this time a masters in coaching from UCC, which facilitated a move to Wayfair in a leadership role to set up their coaching department “from the ground up”.

“Everything I’ve done has always been improvement projects and making things better. For PepsiCo, I led a complete supply chain overhaul,” says Sofia.

A final move from Wayfair to CRH took place in tandem with Sofia’s husband moving to Cork and setting up Fzin as a sole trader in 2021.

Start of something new

“When Anestis moved here, first thing I did was to take him out for a coffee in Cork city. Coffee culture is a huge thing in Greece; it’s generations upon generations, but he wasn’t impressed! Anestis had been working in coffee as a reseller so was able to source and brew coffee at home that was more to his liking.

“But then people would come to our house, have a coffee, like it a lot, and ask if we could get them some as well. Next thing, he had a little business going for himself, and he did that as a sole trader for a couple of years,” says Sofia.

Things went so well that, eventually, Anestis asked Sofia to come on board and quickly landed Musgraves as their first wholesale customer.

But Sofia wanted to do more than just sell coffee.

“It had to have meaning. It had to have purpose. What kind of positive impact can I have?”

First on Sofia’s list were coffee pod systems. Since pod systems burst onto the market, their convenience and user-friendliness elevated the at-home coffee experience.

But there are problems with using pods. They can only be used once, are typically made from plastic and aluminium, incredibly difficult to strip down for recycling, and, despite some offering take-back-recycling, the reality is many end up in landfill.

Sofia recognised this and wanted to create a real solution to those issues, but also understood many people had already invested in a pod system and would be reluctant to swap to a different one.

Her solution was to create a new coffee pod that would work with any machine, made from only plant-based materials and fully home compostable.

Revolutionising coffee pod tech

Fzin was about to revolutionise coffee pod technology.

“I realised a lot of people had already invested in equipment, so I had to find a way to enable them to give them an option,” says Sofia.

“The first thing I did was source sustainable materials for our Diva system which is the coffee machine and compostable coffee pots we were selling.

“We found a company that could do it and I commissioned the R&D of the Espresso Aromatico capsules that are compatible with existing coffee pod machines.”

Products claiming to be compostable are based on a Bio-Based Rating, from one to four stars.

“Four is the highest bio-based rating and means the product has 80% renewable (plant-based) content”

That’s one aspect. The other considers how compostable a product is when no longer usable.

Items that are industrially compostable might include products like vegware which technically are compostable but don’t always break down efficiently in a home-based environment. Home compostable includes any item that can be put into a domestic compost bin and completely disintegrate.

“I got the best of the best: independently certified as four stars bio-based and home compostable within 180 days,” says Sofia. “It’s a first for Ireland to have this certified four-star bio-based home compostable rating on a product, and one of very few in Europe.”

Consumers might not know there’s a difference. As a home composter myself, I have noticed how products claiming to be compostable don’t break down in my compost bins, so I end up putting it into general waste which completely defeats the object.

“The estimated amount of plastic and aluminium coffee pods that end up in landfill is 780 million - that’s three Olympic-sized swimming pools. Ireland is a small country; we can’t justify that at all.

“That’s just domestic use; it’s nearly impossible to calculate what that figure would be for systems in use in hotels, offices, etc.”

Sofia added: “Alexander the Great’s philosophy of Fzin was understanding what life really is about. For us life, is about doing the right thing, and through our company and products we provide a more sustainable solution to enjoying your coffee every day.”

All Sofia achieved in her career before Fzin – process improvement, transformation, doing things better, being a leader – teed her up perfectly for taking an already good concept and making it even better than the pod’s original creators imagined.

People who brew their coffee at home have been early adopters. The adoption rate, says Sofia, is fantastic.

When it comes to selling into other businesses, as a small business Fzin is focusing on making a big impact fast. Right now, that is with hotels.

“Hotels are where I see we can make the biggest impact. A hotel with 200 rooms at full capacity could have 200 aluminium capsules a day going to landfill, and there are hundreds of those hotels in Ireland.

“It can be trickier for larger hotels to swap because they may be tied into a contract, so we are finding smaller hotels are our early adopters,” says Sofia.

“Our local hotel here in Macroom, the Castle Hotel, has become the first hotel in Ireland to kit out all their rooms with our sustainably manufactured coffee machines and compostable coffee pods. That’s not a huge hotel chain with unlimited budget, it’s a 75-room hotel and yet it’s leading the way.

“There’s a lot to be said for smaller hotels and guest houses trying to do the right thing for themselves and their community.

“Why can’t they be the trailblazers? It is a great news story of local supporting local, because Fzin and The Castle Hotel are practically neighbours!”

Sustainable action

Aside from pods, Fzin is taking sustainable action across the whole range. Syrups for flavouring coffees come in glass, not plastic, bottles.

“80% of glass gets recycled versus 30% of plastic,” says Sofia.

“All our drinking chocolate is palm oil free, and we collaborate with Treedom so every kilogram of coffee we sell in whatever format (pods, beans or ground), contributes to Treedom helping farmers plant trees to grow food for themselves and enhances biodiversity.

“It’s all about trying to offset any impact we might have,” Sofia says.

“Last year alone, we’ve removed 100kg of plastic waste and aluminium from just our coffee pods, largely possible from our wholesale partnership with Musgrave.”

The effort is getting recognised.

Recognition

Toward the end of 2025, Fzin was named the recipient of a Three grant worth €10,000 to help with communications and technology, and 2026 will see Fzin exporting through its partnership with Musgrave Northern Ireland.

In April, the couple will travel to Paris for the Women Changing the World Awards, where Sofia will collect three awards and Fzin one.

“Gold for Rising Star, bronze for Change Maker, and an honourable mention for Leader of the Year! Fzin got second place for Business of the Year. These are Europe-wide awards, so I am delighted,” says Sofia.

“I poured over the application; it took me days and I thought about every word speaking from my heart about what I want to achieve. It’s about making an impact before a profit.

“Obviously, we’re in business to make profit, but I think impact should come first. Profit alone is a broken compass.”

I think Alexander would be proud of Sofia and Anestis for proving that a good life is not blindly accepting what is, but striving for an optimal – and fulfilling - life.

What of some wise words of her own?

What would the Sofia of today say to the 21-year-old Sofia who thought she would be in Ireland for three months?

“Everything is possible. A no, a closed door, a disappointment, it’s just a diversion towards a different opportunity. It doesn’t matter. You never fail until you stop trying, so never stop trying until you achieve what you really want.”

• See www.fzin.ie