Rens Original: The coffee-based trainer brand with global ambitions
Most of us take a bit of time to wake up in the morning. For the sleepy masses, a cup of coffee is essential, although the more energetic among us might stretch to a run.
It will soon be possible to combine the two – after a fashion – as footwear start-up Rens Original is launching a pair of waterproof performance trainers made from coffee grounds.
The upper part of the shoe is a 50/50 blend of recycled coffee yarn and recycled polyester constructed from six post-consumer plastic bottles. The outsole is natural rubber, the removable insole features a 100% recycled polyester sockliner, and the waterproof membrane covering the shoe is made from 100% recycled plastic from post-consumer water bottles.
The Nomad performance trainer will be available for men and women in nine colours and is designed to support activities including walking, hiking or trail running, in any weather. It is currently available on Kickstarter for an early bird pre-order price of $99 (£72) with delivery expected by the end of the year.
Co-founders Son Chu (left) and Jesse Tran
CEO Jesse Tran, 29, co-founded Rens Original with Son Chu, 25, in 2017 and this is the second product they have launched to market. Tran and Chu grew up in Vietnam and studied in Finland, where the business is based. They spent 18 months developing their first shoe – the Rens everyday trainer, which was launched in 2019, retails at $119 (£86.30), and is also made from post-industrial plastic waste and used coffee grounds. So far, Rens has sold 40,000 of these shoes, recycling more than 250,000 plastic bottles and the waste from more than 750,000 cups of coffee in the process. The brand can be bought direct to consumer through its website, as well as on Shopify and Zalando.
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Most of its customers are environmentally aware Generation Z and millennials, who are around 18 to 35 years old. The shoes are made in Vietnam, which is overtaking China for footwear manufacturing: 60% of Nike and more than 50% of Adidas footwear is now made in Vietnam.
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Green growth
Speaking to Drapers from Helsinki, Tran explains that the focus of the business is sustainability: “We only have two products so far, the first and this second generation of our coffee shoes. We stop coffee waste and plastic bottles going to landfill, or plastic bottles going to the ocean – even worse.” With this new performance shoe, Rens has committed to teaming up with environmental consultancy ClimatePartner to offset all climate emissions from production, packaging, distribution, and shipping to warehouses around the world.
It’s clear, however, that as well as being motivated by the environment, Tran has big global commercial ambitions for the product. Rens Original employs 20 members of staff and ships all over the world. Very soon, Tran says, “we will go quite aggressively into omnichannel”. Rens is currently in talks with two of the biggest retailers in the US – the names of which he cannot currently reveal – which would stock the shoes in store and online. He is also in talks with UK retailers.
Rens’ Nomad
The UK used to be Rens’ second biggest market in Europe after Germany, but it has slipped down to fourth place following Brexit as UK consumers have to pay duties and taxes on goods from the EU. As a result, Tran is exploring options to open a warehouse in the UK.
“We have a warehouse in the Netherlands, and before Brexit we could ship all over Europe without tax and duties,” he says. “Because of Brexit we need to pay taxes and duties, so that’s why we will open a UK warehouse soon and launch a specific website for the UK market. If we don’t open a UK warehouse, when we ship to customers in the UK we have to pay taxes and duties in the same way as if we were shipping from China.”
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Rens Original launched its first product on Kickstarter and it is doing the same with its second. The first Kickstarter launch raised more than half a million dollars (£364,000), and became the most successful fashion Kickstarter campaign in the Nordics. Tran explains: “Kickstarter was a way for us to launch a product with pre-orders and build Rens as a community with no contacts, influence or money.”
Time for change
“[Kickstarter] is a branding campaign – we hope it will be half a million dollars like last time,” he says. “We reached our goal of $19k in one and a half hours. By launching on Kickstarter, we are trying to get feedback from the customers.”
This gives Rens an opportunity to listen to requests, so that it still has time to change the design. “This product is not in the market, so we have a window of opportunity to improve it.”
The Kickstarter campaign is essentially a pre-order mechanism. Customers who pledge early-bird prices can get the Nomad shoe with an estimated delivery in December 2021. Rens does not have a final date for its Nomad shoe to launch direct to consumer, but pre-orders will be available on its website from around October. In the future, the brand will continue to launch its headline products on Kickstarter.
For a brand that hopes to remain agile and “think like a start-up”, Rens certainly has big ambitions. “We want to be the footwear brand of the UK over Nike or Adidas,” Tran says. The world is its oyster, as long as it continues to offset its carbon emissions.
Brexit footwear kickstarter Sustainabililty
2021-08-23
Anna Behrmann
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Brexit footwear kickstarter Sustainabililty
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