Case Study · 5 min read · December 2025
Case Study: HAYB's Sustainable Advent Calendar — From Bean to Box
How specialty roaster HAYB used FSC-certified rigid boxes and recyclable inserts to launch a giftable advent calendar without compromise.
Specialty Polish coffee roaster HAYB wanted to translate their seasonal coffee menu into a premium gifting moment — 24 individually portioned coffees behind a calendar reveal. The brief: Instagram-worthy, fully recyclable, and shippable in standard ecommerce cartons. Here's how the structure came together.
The packaging brief
Three constraints drove the design: each of the 24 windows had to protect a single-dose freshness pouch from light and oxygen, the outer shell had to survive courier shipping without a secondary mailer, and every component had to be kerbside recyclable in EU streams.
Plastic blister trays were ruled out on day one. Foil-laminated rigid board was ruled out shortly after — beautiful, but mixed-material.
The build
The outer is FSC-certified rigid greyboard wrapped in soy-ink printed paper, with a magnetic-closure flap. The 24-cell insert is a single die-cut moulded-pulp tray — no glue, no plastic windows.
Each coffee dose sits in a recyclable mono-PE pouch printed with the origin and tasting notes, sealed for 12-month shelf life.
Results
The calendar sold out in 11 days across DTC and wholesale, with a 4.2× higher AOV than HAYB's standard 250g bag. Returns were under 0.5% — moulded pulp absorbed courier shocks better than the corrugated alternative.
Post-season audit: 96% of the structure (by weight) was kerbside recyclable; the remaining 4% (the mono-PE doses) was store-drop-off recyclable.