“Our file is everywhere, and we love it,” said Starbucks chief sustainability officer Michael Copori. “But it’s this ubiquitous symbol of a thrown society.”
Because, the trophies will be discarded. If they are thrown away, the cups end up as trash in bins or on the streets and waterways. Some can be recycled, but recycling is an imperfect option – recyclable materials will still end up in terrain.
The best solution? “Deleting a once-in-a-lifetime trophy,” Kopori said. He called that option the “Holy Grail.”
By 2025, the company wants every customer to be able to easily use their own mug or borrow a ceramic or reusable mug from their local Starbucks company. That means issuing more borrowing plans that require a deposit.
By the end of next year, Starbucks plans for customers to use their own mugs at every Starbucks in the United States and Canada, whether they pre-order or use Drive-Through.
Targets do not mean removing Starbucks paper and plastic cups. But they want to make that option attractive. Most Starbucks customers are used to that simple, single-use option, so it will not be easy to do. But the company has a plan.
Tests Borrow-A-Cup programs
To phase out disposables, Starbucks is considering a comprehensive credit-one-cup plan in which customers can pay for a durable file they carry and withdraw after use.
Amelia Landers, vice president of product experience responsible for standard packaging at Starbucks, expects the model to resonate even more. With clients compared to other sustainability efforts.
“I think it will be at the forefront,” he said. “We do various tests [borrow-a-cup] Programs around the world, including “20 different iterations and eight different markets”.
“We created a new cup with a very low environmental footprint, which is lightweight polypropylene, which is ultimately recyclable and can replace 100 single-use disposable cups,” Landers explained.
For that test, customers paid a $ 1 deposit and had to return the trophy to a smart bin in the store to get their dollars back. Customers also receive rewards for using the trophy.
Kim Davis, who manages a shop where the program has been tested, said customers were curious about the tank and that many had this idea once the baristas explained it to them.
“The excitement and involvement between my clients and my clients was very high [employees]”He said. For the baristas, the process was adequate – they used the reusable cup instead of the regular cup to make the drinks.
The model is very promising because it is easy to integrate into the daily life of the customer.
You do not have to remember to bring your own reusable mug or if you do, get stuck in the dirty cup all day. You do not have to sit at Starbucks and sip coffee, most people do not have time on weekday mornings.
But that model is still being tested, so the company wants to encourage the use of reusable mugs in other ways.
Bringing back the personal trophy
“We are testing the incentive to go from where we are today in the personal trophy – from 10 cents to 50 cents,” Landers said. “We’ve going to test a disposable cup fee as well.” He also said that the ceramic mug offered by Starbucks in stores is being tested at a discounted price for users.
It’s simple enough. But it gets more complicated when customers bring their own files to Drive-Thru or order through the Starbucks app.
Many years ago, pre-ordering or using Drive-Through may have been a rare occurrence. But after the outbreak, more and more customers are coming through drive-through or pre-ordering.
During a call from a February analyst, Starbucks CFO Rachel Rugery said about 70% of sales in US stores run by the company in conjunction with Starbucks’ drive-through windows and its mobile orders were due.
Therefore, to achieve its Zero-Disposable-Cup goal, it needs to figure out how to get reusable items through Starbucks Drive-Through and make them available to customers who pre-order them.
To that end, Starbucks has been testing various options at its innovation center.
“We set up fake shops,” Landers said. “We have different versions of Drive-Through Layout.”
Customers can give their trophies to the baristas in the drive-through window. But Starbucks is exploring ways to streamline the process.
Landers said it is an option to allow customers to drop their trophies at the previous location on the drive-through lane so the drink will be ready in the personal cup as soon as they go to the window. Another is when the baristas prepare the drinks in advance when customers place their orders, pour them into individual tumblers in the window or come to a store to pick up their order. Starbucks is also testing cup washing stations in stores.
The team is trying “different things, over and over again” to find out what might work, he said. “We’re in the middle of that work now.”
But Starbucks must be careful not to put too much burden on employees who already have to produce complex, personalized orders at high speeds.
That is especially important now. Workers across the country are considering unionization, contrary to the wishes of the company leadership.
If the company’s initiative leads to the end of paper and plastic cups at Starbucks, it will be a great achievement.
“We know that even the most serious of Sustainability Champion customers will not change their behavior so easily,” Landers said. “Even if they really want to.”
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