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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

plastic packaging

Google Announces Winners of the Single-Use Plastics Challenge

This week, Google announced the winners of the Single-Use Plastics Challenge, an open-invitation challenge where the company invited startups to present solutions that help reduce plastic waste. The challenge, which launched this past spring, had Google testing out those products that met state and federal requirements and Google’s Food program standards in the company’s U.S.-based cafes and MicroKitchens.

The twelve winners featured several different approaches to the massive problem of plastic waste, from edible cutlery to candy made of upcycled ingredients to biodegradable cups made out of clay. Below is a list of each winner and their product:

Climate Candy: Climate Candy a company that makes candy out of imperfect, unharvested produce. The company reduces plastic by using plant fibers in its packaging.

Eco Refill Systems: The company provides cooking oils in refillable stainless steel containers. The company’s containers can “be refilled and never thrown away.”

GaeaStar: GaeaStar, which The Spoon first wrote about in April of this year, makes clay cups that disintegrate into dust. The company’s founder got the idea while visiting India, where dissolvable, biodegradable clay cups have a long history. The company has developed a proprietary 3D printer that makes each cup in less than 30 seconds.

Homefree: Homefree makes baked goods for food service that use reusable, recyclable packaging. The company’s founder was inspired to create its packaging approach to help reduce plastic waste in the form of the standard large plastic tray and delivers both large and small cookies in formats that reduce plastic waste for food service.

Incredible Eats: Incredible Eats, a Smart Kitchen Summit finalist in 2019 (then known as Planeteer), makes edible cutlery. The company’s founder, Dinesh Tadepalli first came up with the idea for edible cutlery when he was getting his children an ice cream treat. Nowadays, the company is working with large national brands like Dippin Dots, offers both savory and sweet options, and has expanded its options into straws and sporks.

Loliware: Loliware makes biodegradable, compostable cutlery and straws out of seaweed. According to the company, its seaweed-derived resins can be made using standard plastic processing production equipment.

Pulp Pantry: Pulp Pantry makes upcycled snack chips provided in bulk packaging targeted towards food service.

Sun & Swell: Sun & Swell provides healthy snacks such as fruit and nut mixes in various compostable and reusable packaging. The company transitioned to compostable packaging in 2019 for its single-serve SKUs and recently launched a pilot program to offer bulk offerings in reusable packaging.

The Aggressive Good (TAG): TAG makes a bulk-food management system. The system includes a smart bulk dispenser that communicates inventory status and consumption trends, and the company’s reusable cartridge system enables direct shipments of bulk goods from manufacturer to retail.

PlasticFri: PlasticFri provides film-based and fiber-based packaging products using agricultural waste, wild plants, non-edible plants, and wood fibers. Their packaging formats include straws, cups, food mailers, and fruit bags.

Asarasi: Asarasi aims to make a dent in the plastic bottled water market by selling maple water (water derived from maple trees while extracting syrup) served in recyclable aluminum cans.

SOFi: SOFi creates what they describe as “plastic straws that don’t suck.” The company says its straws and cups are made with 100% paper materials, without the plastic or PFA chemicals that make straws and cups unrecyclable.

According to Google, the winners can pitch their products to large food service brands and test their products out in Google’s cafeterias and kitchens. Many of them are already being used to various degrees in various Google locations, and I had a chance to try many of these products earlier this month when I visited Google for its Food Lab.

You can watch a YouTube shorts pitch reel below that includes a description of the challenge and a company pitch from each winner.

Decomer Makes Plant-based Water-soluble Packaging to Fight Plastic Waste

These days, it seems like every time I get food I’m left with a pile of plastic to throw away. Food delivery, meal kits, to-go orders — the ketchup packets alone add up to a staggering amount of plastic. And sadly, the vast majority of it ends up in landfills or clogging up our oceans.

Startup Decomer is trying to cut plastic use by creating a new biodegradable packaging material made from plants. According to founder Mart Salumäe, Decomer’s material is unique in that it’s soluble at a variety of water temperatures. It is also made of cheap and readily available materials, so it costs less than other biodegradable alternatives, which are typically made from petroleum or animal products and can be extremely costly to produce.

Salumäe first looked into edible packaging materials a little over two years ago while working on his masters on material sciences. Though his company started in Estonia and will keep production and R&D operations there, they are now incorporated in the U.S. and just completed famed biotechnology accelerator program at IndieBio.

Decomer’s first product will be water-soluble honey packages. Called “honey drops,” these little balls are meant to be stirred into tea or coffee. The exterior will dissolve tastelessly into the drink along with the honey. Pricing isn’t set in stone, but Salumäe told me over the phone it would probably be about 20 cents per package, with each package containing 30 honey balls. Decomer will sell the packages in retail and also have a special dispenser for use in cafes or restaurants. Salumäe said the company already has requests for the plant-based honey balls in Japan, Europe and the U.S., and plan to start selling them within 12 months.

While Decomer will first head to market with their own branded products, Salumäe, told me they also plan to gradually move towards material sales for large CPG companies. “That way, we can scale production and have a larger impact on the environment,” he explained. The company is also developing blendable packages for smoothies, water-soluble flavor packets (like what you find in ramen), and detergent packs that dissolve in your laundry. Decomer got $250,000 in seed funding from Indiebio and is now in the process of raising $1.2 million.

A wave of companies are thinking outside the box — er, bag — to create new sustainable packaging options. Algotek makes plastic alternatives from algae. Notpla turns seaweed and other plants into biodegradable packaging. Even the big guys are getting in on it: In Japan, 7-Eleven recently unveiled plans to wrap nearly 2.3 billion rice balls in plant-based plastic.

Creating plastic alternatives is becoming more and more critical. Our oceans are filling up with straws, cups, and other single-use plastics; over 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in oceans every year. At the same time, consumers are demanding more convenient, on-the-go dining options, and that typically means more packaging. Hopefully we’ll see more creative solutions to the packaging problem before our oceans become completely clogged with plastic.