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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Newlight Technologies

Shake Shack Is Trialing Biodegradable Cutlery and Straws

Shake Shack announced this week it is testing the use of biodegradable straws and cutlery at six of its 310 locations, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Those items are now available at units in West Hollywood and Long Beach in California, Madison Square Park and West Village in NYC, and in Miami, Florida.

Manufactured by a California-based company called Restore Foodware, the utensils and straws are made from polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), also known as AirCarbon. According to Restore parent company Newlight Technologies, PHB is in “almost all known life on Earth, from microorganisms and trees to the human body.” Restore gets its PHB from ocean microorganisms, cultivates it in tanks, then turns it into pellets that can be melted down and shaped into spoons, knives, and other utensils, just like plastic. 

Unlike plastic, PHB is biodegradable. Speaking to NRN, Newlight CEO Mark Herrema said the substance breaks down “just like leaves and stems do.”

Newlight launched its first commercial-scale production system for AirCarbon in 2019, and launched products in 2020. At the moment, it is making cutlery and straws under the Restore brand. These items are certified carbon negative by Carbon Trust and SCS Global.

At the moment, Shake Shack does not have a timeline on whether it plans to expand its pilot with Restore’s items to other locations. However, the mere fact that the chain is exploring this option is encouraging for the rest of the industry. The shift towards pickup and delivery orders has amplified the problem of packaging waste for restaurants. At the moment, however, smaller businesses are busy trying to keep their doors open and can’t be expected to champion packaging innovation at the same time.

Bigger brands are in a better position to do so (financially speaking), and recent efforts from the likes of McDonald’s, Burger King, Shake Shack, and others suggest the restaurant biz is now taking its packaging problem seriously. 

Food Tech News: Greenhouse Gas Straws, Improved Amazon Grocery Delivery

If you’re ready for a break from all those political memes, here’s your chance to catch up on some final pieces of food tech news from the past week. A few stories that stood out to us include foodware made from greenhouse gases, improved Amazon grocery delivery, PBR’s THC-infused seltzer, and a limited-edition plant-based tuna melt.

Straws made out of pollution

Newlight Technologies, a biotech company based in Southern California, launched commercial foodware and fashion lines made from pollution-eating microorganism secretions. In the company’s Huntington Beach facilities, ocean water conditions are recreated in vats, and then microorganisms are added. Then the vats are purposefully polluted with collected greenhouse gases. Microorganisms then gobble up greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and their excretions are gathered to be dried and formed into pellets. The substance that is molded into pellets in called AirCarbon, and it is then melted and molded to make things like straws, utensils, and wallets. The end products are actually carbon-negative since the gases did not end up in the environment.

Amazon adds feature to improve grocery delivery

If you tried ordering a grocery delivery through Amazon at the start of the pandemic, you might remember checking for available slots around 10 times a day with no luck. Or you might have been one of those people who woke up in the middle of the night to reserve a slot. Amazon just announced a new feature as a solution to this problem: if there are no available slots at the moment, a customer can sign up to wait for the next open delivery time. With the new feature, customers will be given an estimation of when the next available spot will be then notified when it opens. They will have two hours to place an order.

Photo from Npr

Pabst Blue Ribbon releases THC-infused seltzer

Last week Pabst Blue Ribbon announced the release of its 4.2 percent hard cold brew coffee. This week, the company’s new THC-infused seltzer hit shelves. The lemon-flavored seltzer contains no alcohol and has 5mg of THC. The new beverage is targeted at consumers who are curious about cannabis and would prefer eating or drinking it rather than smoking it. Apparently the product is already popular, with both the first and second productions selling out quickly. Priced at $24 each, four-packs of the seltzer are available at dispensaries and online.

Veggie Grill launches Good Catch tuna melt sandwich

Gathered Foods, makers of Good Catch plant-based tuna, partnered with vegan restaurant chain Veggie Grill to release a limited edition tuna melt sandwich. Good Catch makes a protein-rich plant-based tuna from a blend of six legumes: peas, chickpeas, lentils, soy, fava beans, and navy beans. This January, Good Catch raised a $32 million Series B funding round, and Veggie Grill is the first restaurant that Good Catch has partnered with. The tuna melt sandwich will be comprised of a tuna salad, American cheese, pickles, and tomato on griddled rye bread, and it will be available until the end of the year.