How It Started
Two brothers. Two cafes.
One problem that needed fixing.
We're brothers — born and raised in Sydney, steeped in the hospitality industry from a young age. Coffee, good food, regulars who feel like family. That's the world we grew up in.
When plastic straws were banned, we switched to paper like everyone else. It was the right call. But within weeks, the complaints started. Customers pulling apart soggy straws mid-drink. Staff fielding eye rolls. It's a small thing — but in hospitality, small things add up, and they reflect on you.
We tried everything. Bamboo, wheat, pasta straws, more paper. Nothing held up the way we needed. Then we found sugarcane.
Sugarcane straws are made from bagasse — the fibrous byproduct left after sugar is extracted. They're firm. They hold their shape in hot and cold drinks. They don't turn to mush. The complaints stopped. We stopped noticing the straws at all, which is exactly what you want.
So we started importing them ourselves. We tested suppliers, refined our order quantities, and ran them through our own cafes for months before offering them to anyone else. SureSip is the result: a bootstrapped, Sydney-born company built by two brothers who just wanted a straw that worked — and figured other cafe owners probably had the same problem.
We're not a big brand with a sustainability marketing budget. We're a family business that found something that works, and we're sharing it.