By Earth Cups Team
Our story begins back in 2020 at Williams College with our two co-founders, Misha Medvedev and Peter Frelinghuysen. Walking to tennis practice each day, Misha and Peter would see thousands of plastic cups littered across their college’s campus – and they recognized the global problem of plastic pollution first-hand. Determined to do something about the issue, the two launched Earth Cups in April of 2021. Their first office was their dorm room; their first warehouse was Misha’s mom’s garage. Through the remainder of 2021, they did over $200k in sales.
Since graduating in the spring of 2022, Misha and Peter – and the rest of the team – have grown beyond college campuses and built a clientele of over 100 organizations, including Cisco Brewers, Formula One, 818 Tequila, Sierra Nevada, TD Garden, Tatte Bakery, and many more. Today, we’ve sold Earth Cups on over 400 college campuses, built an ambassador program of 5,000+ students, grown a social following of 120,000 people, and have displaced tens of millions of non-recyclable plastic cups.
The bread and butter of this company are our popular Earth Cups - biodegradable & compostable cups that even come in compostable packaging! They are BPI-certified, proven to effectively compost and degrade in just 90 days at an industrial composting facility. These cups are also better-for-you, as they’re completely microplastic-free. We know that to grow our impact we have to continue to be entrepreneurial, which is why we are expanding into new products and materials, like rPET and algae.
This time of year is our favorite season: back to school! With more than 400 campuses supplied with Earth Cups in some capacity, 30 campus organizations enrolled in our Earth Cups Alliance membership program, and 20 Campus Managers at some of the biggest universities in the country, we’ve been quite busy. This year we’ve expanded our college network to sponsor Sorority Rush at numerous universities;
Theta, DG, and SDT at the University of Wisconsin have been stand-outs with this collaboration. It’s also college football season, which means constant tailgates and a constant need for cups. Nothing makes a tailgate as cool as having an Earth Cup in hand – talk about a Game Day win! College students have been a huge part of our brand and our audience since the beginning, and it's great to see how much the brand and our mission resonates with them. They’ve helped us build a community around a product, and without them we’d be nowhere. It’s been an incredible journey – with ups and downs – since those late nights in a dorm room at Williams College dorm, but we’re more motivated and committed now than ever before!
We want you to be a part of this growing family! Please join us on our mission and reach out to info@earthbrands.earth with any ideas you have about possible partnership opportunities, your favorite coffee shop that is in need of sustainable cups, a school organization that is in need for a cooler and more eco-friendly party essential, or just to say hi! We can’t wait to hear from you :-)
Images courtesy of Gabrielle DeBenedict