COIL Stories
Heartwood Farm and Cidery:
Putting circularity into practice
Heartwood Farm & Cidery has always used sustainable and regenerative practices, aiming to create products that reflect the farm’s connection to the land and natural systems. COIL Activate Circular Accelerator (COIL Activate) has allowed Heartwood to reach new markets by supporting the launch of their non-alcoholic apple cider, Heartwood Sparkle. Heartwood’s vision is to scale Sparkle sustainably, integrating circularity at every level of the supply chain.
The Impact
Meaningful products: The successful launch of Sparkle has allowed Heartwood to continue to tell their story. Their products are designed to inspire their customers to feel a connection to the farm.
Reducing waste: With COIL Activate, Heartwood is ensuring a degree of circularity during out- and in-house manufacturing steps. Whether it is reusing waste-stream products or reintegrating used production materials (boxes, trays, dividers), they are always finding ways to reduce waste.
Partnerships matter: Heartwood has learned that one individual or business can’t create circular models alone – it requires buy-in from customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. They were thrilled that their co-packager was willing to receive their materials from previous packaging runs to be reused.
How they made it work
For their COIL Activate project, Heartwood Farm & Cidery focused on the re-integration of all forms of materials into the production processes. Upon realizing the amount of waste created through co-packaging, they were determined to find a circular solution by reassessing their standard production operations. They achieved this by engaging their suppliers, who agreed to step up to the challenge of reducing waste.
Heartwood Farm & Cidery has adopted the ‘recovering waste’ as their circular business model. They have several co-packaged foods made with ingredients from manufacturing waste streams. For example, leftover liquid from the cider filtration process is used to create a new product rather than sent down the drain. Heartwood is continuing to research applications for other waste streams and looking to create more innovative products in the future.
“My advice to business owners wishing to initiate a circular journey would be to standardize circularity as a core part of your business” – Matt Steinman, Production Lead
