Surface Design Awards – Complete

• INTERIOR SURFACE OF THE YEAR - NEW
  This is a new category that recognises wall, floor, ceiling and surface design products, including decorative, creative and inventive surfaces for the interior of buildings including both commercial and residential properties.

KAVA is a new product created by Tomas & Jani, who have been making furniture for 30 years. It is made by combining a mix of organic fibres and using heat, pressing them into a substrate, most likely sustainably sourced birch plywood. It can be used for any interior surface from wall murals, panelling, in furniture and as worktops and splash backs.

KAVA is an organic, plastic-free material made from coffee waste. It's created by using a combination of coffee waste and other organic fibres such as powdered fruit stone or crushed argan and walnut shells. This specialist combination is pressed onto a chipboard or plywood with our unique formulation of binders. We achieve a range of different colours and textures by using organic powders or byproducts such as ground metals, powdered marble, charcoal dust, and natural pigments.

What sets us apart?

We know other surfaces exist that use coffee waste, but we believe that our product, vision, mission, and values is what distinguishes us from the others.

Waste materials are sometimes used in composites but rarely do they contain zero plastics. Our surfaces don't contain anything toxic to the environment or your health. That means that when it does reach the end of its life, our products are fully recyclable and you can be certain that even if they were to somehow finish up in landfill, then they will decompose naturally in a similar way to wood.

Kava has been in R&D since 2020, and has been soft launched this year (2023). Our first ever show was Surface Design Show 2023 but we didn't even have a product name then!

Cost varies but worktops are approximately £300.00 per linear metre (with a 600mm depth and a 36mm thickness).
Lead times are approximately 2-6 weeks.

Substrate: birch ply, chipboard, mdf
Surface "organic laminate" containing coffee waste, crushed olive stones, bio-resin, water based adhesive and lacquer
Name: KAVA ("coffee" in Slovak languages, founder Jani Lemut is Slovenian)
Usage: interior surfaces such as worktops, wall panelling, furniture, door fronts, splash backs - can be used for both domestic projects and commercial.

This is still to be tested, we are truly a tiny team with a tight budget but we are passionate about sustainability and promoting materials that actually work without compromising on sustainability.
We source FSC certified birch ply (I know, this is the norm now!) but this is only when we cannot source recycled birch plywood. Ideally, we buy recycled birch ply if we can which is sourced less than 1 mile up the road from a social enterprise called The Wood Store.
We get all of our coffee waste from a local coffee shop and roasters in Lewes which is collected en route to our workshop fortnightly.
We encourage all of our clients to return their product to us at the end of life so that we can transform it into something new.
We have been refusing to offer our surface in sheets as we didn't want to contribute to further wastage, instead we prefer to make exactly what is required.
Our business vision and goals is to sell franchises rather than ship all over the world. We want to share our knowledge so that materials always remain local and so that people have access to KAVA internationally without contributing to worldwide shipment.
Our team are all local (within 30 mins from workshop) and are encouraged to lift share or cycle to work.
We are carbon neutral
We plant a tree for every sale we make
We genereally don't produce any waste that can't be recycled. We deal with waste responsibly by:
- repurposing or designing with multiple uses in mind.
- choose materials that can be recycled or reused either by us or elsewhere
- packed down and stored efficiently
Packaging and Stationary
We try to send out many samples out at a time and our packaging is:
- wrapped in recycled coffee bean sack for protection
- placed in compostable mailer bag
- made from recycled paper, we never use vinyl or plastics
Circular
We are a circular business which means that:
- everything we put out, come back to us
- we re-use and recycle our own waste
- we encourage the circularity of other businesses within our own

KAVA in its true form can only be used for flat surfaces.

So as mentioned, we are truly a tiny team with a little budget so are only capable of stretching as far as we can. We are certainly eligible for various awards and certification from cradle to cradle to B-Corp but we have simply reached capacity in terms of time, finance, and expertise. To win an award linked to such a prestigious organisation as SDS would be so beneficial to our start up.