Foodservice Operators Rethink the Disposable Coffee Cup
By Peter Romeo on Jan. 18, 2019CHICAGO -- Are single-use coffee cups the new plastic drink straws? Both have been demonized as ecological hazards that restaurants can and should replace, with most of the backlash focused to date on straws because the fix is easier.
But recent signs suggest pressure is building to find alternatives to disposable hot-beverage containers as well, a harder swap to make because the known possibilities aren’t feasible in terms of cost and functionality.
Now stakeholders of all stripes are going beyond the known and obvious in search of disruptive solutions. Here’s a sampling of those farther-afield replacements, some of which are already in the foodservice marketplace.
Cup sharing
A handful of restaurants in Boulder, Colo., are trying a coffee cup riff on bike sharing, a transportation alternative widely in place from coast to coast. Operators partnering with startup Vessel Works serve hot beverages in a silver permanent-ware cup, whether it’s for on-premise consumption or to go. When customers are done, cups are returned for someone else’s use, just like shared bikes or library books. A third party picks up used cups from participating establishments, then sanitizes and redistributes them.
Proponents say the approach is economically feasible because participating restaurants pay less per cup use than they’d spend to buy a new disposable. But the program is in its infancy, having just begun in recent weeks with four restaurants.
Smart cups
Technology embedded in the permanent-ware cups recently introduced in the U.K. by Costa Coffee, the No. 2 coffee chain on that side of the Atlantic, turns the vessels into electric wallets that no one would want to lose, much less discard. The bottom of the container communicates with the store, relaying the user’s order and payment without contact, or loading funds into the cup. It’s unclear how the customer bearing the cup cleans it between uses.
Costa calls the containers its “clever cup.”
Latte levies
Not all the efforts to keep single-use cups out of landfills hinge on finding alternative containers. Montreal restaurant operators met in December to evaluate a controversial way of dampening demand for the single-use vessels. They’re looking to slap what amounts to an environmental sinner’s tax on orders served in a disposable cup, on the order of 25 cents per container. With that sort of upcharge, consumers may be willing to start lugging a reusable mug to their favorite coffee source.
It’s not the first use of what proponents have dubbed a latte levy. In the U.K., some Starbucks stores add 5 pence to the price of any hot drink that’s served in a disposable. Conversely, the coffee giant offers discounts (10 cents in the United States, 25 pence in the U.K.) on orders served in a customer’s reusable cup.
Reusable promotions
Every year, Starbucks releases a newly designed cup for use solely during the year-end holidays. This year, it gave that tradition a twist by simultaneously offering a free reusable version along with the standard disposable option. Patrons who took the complimentary 16-ounce tumbler got 50 cents off if they used it for a beverage ordered after 2 p.m., normally a slower period for the chain. The deal ran through Jan. 7.
29 potential solutions
One of the brainier efforts to find a feasible alternative is the NexGen Cup Challenge, a serious competition conducted by the Ideo industrial-design think tank in collaboration with Starbucks, McDonald’s and Yum Brands, parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. The challenge invited entrepreneurs and designers to submit their ideas. About 480 teams from 53 countries entered.
A culled-down list of 29 teams will be afforded an opportunity to work with an authority in the fields of design and product development, along with help in choosing the right materials for the cups.
The ideas in the running include a similar system what’s being tried in Boulder (though with the addition of a deposit), as well as the Mushroom Cup, a version that contains a dormant, undetectable form of fungus. When the cup is discarded, the fungus reactivates and breaks down the cup.