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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Starbucks Trialing a ‘Borrow a Cup’ Program in Seattle

Starbucks announced this week that it is currently trialing a reusable cup program at five Seattle, Washington stores for a period of two months. Dubbed the “Borrow a Cup” program, the trial is a continuation of an earlier single-store pilot that took place this past fall and winter in Seattle.

To participate, customers can order a beverage in a reusable cup for both in-person and mobile orders at participating stores. There is a $1 deposit. Once a customer is done with their drink, they can return the cup to participating stores, all of which will have return kiosks where customers can drop the empty cup. Upon returning the cup, customers also scan their Starbucks app to receive 10 bonus points on their Rewards account. (They get their deposit back, too.)

To clean the cups, Starbucks has partnered with a company called GO Box, which collects cups daily for cleaning and sanitizing, then returns them to circulation within 48 hours. 

Starbucks has also partnered with Ridwell, which offers a home pickup service for hard-to-recycle items, in case a customer can’t actually get to a store to return their cup. Users will get a Ridwell bin in which they can place their reusable cups for pickup at the front door. Users must purchase a Ridwell membership to join the pilot. Pricing varies from $10 to $14 depending on the type of subscription.

Starbucks noted today that a major hurdle on the path towards more widespread use of reusables is convenience. “The challenge is how to make choosing reusables as convenient as you expect from Starbucks – no extra steps – especially with 80% of Starbucks beverages being enjoyed on the go,” the company said in a statement today.

It’s all too possible that the extra steps of having to return a cup to the store or set up service with Ridwell may prove too involved for some consumers. Given that, we can assume the “Borrow a Cup” program is just one small step on Starbucks’ journey towards a more earth-friendly coffee business, particularly where cups are concerned. 

Worldwide, we throw out about 264 billion paper cups per year. Because of their plastic lining, these cups are difficult to recycle and therefore wind up in the landfill more often than not. In the U.S., reusable programs aren’t yet widespread, though that is slowly changing. Fellow QSRs Burger King and McDonald’s have both partnered with LOOP, the circular packaging service from TerraCycle, to trial reusable containers, including cups.

Both Starbucks and McDonald’s worked with Closed Loop Partners’ NextGen Consortium, which aims to reduce packaging waste, prior to the pandemic. Starbucks also had a “bring your own” reusables program in which customers could bring their own cups to Starbucks cafes and receive a small discount in return. That program was suspended because of COVID-19, and has not yet been reinstated at any Starbucks cafe.

Food Tech News: Vegan Chicken Nugget Vest and Edible Food Packaging

Happy Spring! No matter the weather or season, you can depend on The Spoon for keeping you up to date on news in the food tech space. In this week’s round-up we have news on a chicken nugget vest, edible food packaging, a new food delivery service, and Starbucks ‘ carbon neutral coffee bean goals.

LikeMeat releases “nugget pocket” for keeping vegan chicken nuggets warm

Germany-based LikeMeat makes plant-based meat alternatives like nuggets, patties, bratwurst, and schnitzel made from soy protein, and the company just announced the launch of a very specific clothing accessory – the “nugget pocket”. The piece fits like a vest, and has a large insulated pocket for keeping LikeMeat’s vegan chicken nuggets warm, as well as a pocket for hot sauce bottles and a napkin dispenser. It is made from organic cotton, upcycled delivery bags, and tencel, and can keep nuggets warm for an hour and a half. The vest is not available for purchase at the moment but can be won through a giveaway on LikeMeat’s Instagram. Additionally, LikeMeat launched four of its plant-based chicken products in Sprouts nationwide throughout the US earlier this month.

Photo from Roniz Daluse via Unsplash

Scientists from Russia and India developed edible film for food packaging

A group of scientists from Russia and India announced this week that they have developed an edible transparent film that can be used for food packaging of fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, and baked goods. The film is made from seaweed biopolymer sodium alginate, and can almost fully dissolve in water within a 24 hour period. The scientists cross-linked alginate molecules with a natural antioxidant ferulic acid, which makes the film more rigid and also helps preserve food longer. Although this product is new, it can be produced on an industrial scale with no need for special equipment.

Photo by Jon Tyson via Unsplash

Chekout, a new food delivery service, launches in New York City area

Chekout is a new delivery service recently launched in the New York City area that charges a flat delivery rate of $2.50 and a maximum 10% service fee to customers. The company aims to benefit restaurants and does not charge them to use the service while also offering free online exposure and marketing. Some food delivery services can cut into a restaurant’s profit with high service fees, which can even cause menu item prices to become inflated, and Chekout prides itself in avoiding this. So far, about 100 restaurants have signed up to use the service in the Manhattan area. The app can now be downloaded from the Apple app store, and Chekout has plans to expand its service throughout the US.

Food Tech News: New Asian e-Grocer, Oatly’s pre-IPO Starbucks Rollout

Umamicart, a new Asian e-commerce grocer, launches in NY metro area

This past week, the new Asian e-grocer Umamicart launched in the NY metro area, and its next-day grocery delivery service is now available in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The platform offers Asian pantry staples, meats, seafood, tofu, fruits, vegetables, snacks, and drinks, with around 500 different grocery items currently listed. Umamicart also sells kits for making different meals like sushi, dumplings, hot-pots, and Mapo tofu. The platform requires a $30 minimum purchase, and orders less than $49.99 will be charged a $6.99 delivery fee.

Photo from Wix Restaurant’s website

Wix Restaurants Acquires SpeedETab to help enhance online restaurant presence

Wix Restaurants (a subsidiary of Wix) is a website builder for restaurants, and this week the company announced its acquisition of SpeedETab, a tool that allows restaurants to integrate online ordering into existing platforms. The addition of SpeedETab will allow restaurants signed up with Wix Restaurants to streamline orders from multiple channels, manage offline and online orders, and integrate various restaurant POS systems.

Photo from Oatly’s website

Oatly rolls out in Starbucks nationwide before IPO

Oatly, producers of oat-based vegan dairy products, announced this week that it had reached a deal with Starbucks to serve its oat milk in all Starbucks throughout the U.S. Starbucks will feature Oatly’s non-dairy oat milk in several new drinks, including the Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso and Honey Oatmilk Latte. Oatly milk will be available on Starbucks ‘ menu year-round, as it is now part of the core menu. Oatly uses a proprietary process to create its oat milk that incorporates certain enzymes to break down finely milled oats, which results in a naturally sweet and creamy non-dairy milk. The company filed for its initial public offering last week, the details of which will be shared with the public in the next few weeks.

Photo from SIMPLIFY The Brewer’s Kickstarter campaign

SIMPLIFY the Brewer launches on Kickstarter

A first glance, the new coffee brewing equipment called SIMPLIFY the Brewer from Bathtub Coffee looks like a transparent pour-over. However, this brewer was meticulously designed by a former professional barista, Ryo John Ito. Other pour-over brewers depend on the coffee “bloom” (splashing a small amount of hot water over grounds to allow the degassing of carbon dioxide) for a good cup of coffee, and the pour-over brewing method often takes three to four minutes to complete. SIMPLIFY the Brewer’s design includes a larger opening for coffee to flow through and minimal contact between the brewer and paper filter. As a result, a strong cup of coffee is brewed in one to two minutes, which is convenient for busy coffee shops. The Kickstarter campaign for the coffee brewer is live, and pledging ¥2,720 (about $26 USD), guarantees a SIMPLIFY the Brewer shipped to you in May 2021.

Is a Major Starbucks-Eat Just Partnership in the Works?

Over the weekend, I wrote about Starbucks testing a 100 percent plant-based menu at a location in Seattle, a move company CEO Kevin Johnson said was a direct response to consumer demand. But it seems that’s not the only move the coffee giant has made recently when it comes to building a more plant-forward menu. From the looks of it, Starbucks could be pushing for a major partnership with plant-based egg-maker Eat Just, too.

As one does on the internet, I stumbled across a piece of Starbucks news from the end of January that at the time went largely unnoticed. The Dallas Observer reported that Starbucks has expanded the test market for a vegan breakfast sandwich the company quietly piloted in Washington state in October 2020. 

This is apparently not the same breakfast sandwich as the Impossible Breakfast Sandwich Starbucks launched in 2020, which features Impossible’s sausage patty but also uses regular ol’ eggs and cheese. The new iteration is 100 percent vegan and, according to the Observer, is made up of an Impossible patty, an Eat Just folded egg, and a plant-based cheese from an unnamed company. The sandwich is now testing in the Dallas and Forth Worth metro area and available for a limited time.

Further investigation pulled up this Starbucks menu item called “plant-based breakfast sandwich” that looks identical. Though Impossible is the only company named for now, the menu item includes “a plant-based egg patty” that looks suspiciously like Eat Just’s folded egg product.

Eat Just was not available to comment for this story. But nothing about a major Starbucks-Eat Just alliance would surprise. The latter’s folded egg product is an obvious candidate for the QSR realm, given that it requires little prep (heat it up and serve) and has no real competitor right now when it comes to frozen egg products made from plants. It also closely resembles the omelette-like patty found on traditional breakfast sandwiches everywhere, including Starbucks, Dunkin’, McDonald’s, and the independently owned coffeeshop down the street.

Starbucks is also well known at this point for the sous-vide egg bites it sells at most U.S. locations. As it happens, Eat Just recently released its own line of sous-vide bites which for the moment are only in grocery stores but could be customized to fit on a plant-based Starbucks menu.

Starbucks’ Johnson said on a recent earnings call that breakfast drove the high performance of food during the company’s first quarter. Given that plus the fact that a 100 percent vegan breakfast sandwich has been seen and tasted in the real world, it seems only a matter of time before we hear wind of a much more widespread partnership between the two companies.

Rise of the Plant-Based QSR

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Those of us of a certain age will remember a time when eating “vegan” at a QSR meant the Wendy’s salad bar. 

Fast forward to 2021, and advances in both food technology and the restaurant biz have made the concept of eating vegan (which we now call “plant based”) much more palatable to the mainstream. The names “Beyond” and “Impossible” are on most major QSR’s menus today. Eat Just’s plant-based egg products are in a growing number of fast-food breakfast items. And recently, two more announcements from major QSRs dropped that indicate we’re at fast approaching a major turning point for menus in the QSR realm.

On its most recent earnings call, Starbucks said it had turned one of its Seattle, Washington locations into a test area for a “100% plant-based food menu.” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson suggested that this test site is in response to what he sees as “the most dominant shift in consumer behavior,” which is the move to plant-based foods. The shift, said Johnson, is evident in both food and beverages. 

The move to offer plant-based meals to customers isn’t entirely new for Starbucks. The chain debuted Beyond Meat products in China last year and carries Impossible sausage sandwiches at its stores in the U.S. It also offers a number of plant-based milk alternatives. 

But this new test store in Seattle is the first time the chain has gone full-tilt on a plant-based menus. All food items on the Starbucks menu will be vegan, with animal-based proteins being replaced by plant-based counterparts. 

Also recently, McDonald’s announced it’s finally testing its McPlant burger, a vegan offering the mega-QSR developed with Beyond Meat. While this is less of a monumental change than overhauling an entire menu, McDonald’s has up to now has made few moves when it comes to introducing plant-based foods to its menus. (A brief trial in Canada is the exception.) Though this McPlant pilot is pretty limited right now — Denmark and two cities in Sweden — it is also likely also in response to a growing consumer demand for plant-based proteins.

All that said, demand shows up differently in different parts of the world. Sweden and Seattle are obvious choices to test plant-based wares, given the demographics that reside in those areas. In the U.S., at least, seven in 10 people classify themselves as “meat eaters,” according to recent data, and there are undoubtedly parts of the country where a plant-based Starbucks would fail harder than the Wendy’s salad bar expansion did in the ‘90s. 

For now, that is. As more tests like that of Starbucks are conducted, and major chains like McDonald’s introduce more plant-based items, the concept of a full-vegan fast-food meal will grow less foreign to more customers. I doubt it’s long before we see plant-based QSR locations popping up in certain markets like, NYC, San Francisco, and even newly popular cities like Austin and Denver. How the plant-based QSR fares in these markets will tell us a lot about when it will head to other parts of the country.

The Restaurant Robots Are Coming

Of course we’ll know we’ve really hit a turning point when vegan Starbucks locations start delivering our plant-based breakfast sandwiches via robot.

I just made that up, but as The Spoon’s Editor in Chief Chris Albrecht points out in his new Spoon Plus report, we will soon see these delivery bots rolling about our sidewalks, college campuses, and city streets.

Chris’ report breaks down the different companies currently leading the space, including Starship, Kiwi, Nuro, and Refraction, and where these players’ opportunities lie in making robot delivery more common for the average consumer.

In the restaurant realm, there are a few advantages to robot delivery. It’s first and foremost a more contactless delivery method, which is an obvious plus at a time when COVID-19 vaccines aren’t widespread. Robots can also work continuously without the need for a break and could potentially be cheaper for restaurants. The flip, of course, is that widespread robot deployments would take jobs away, a point that cannot be ignored in any discussion about restaurant robots.

Chris delves into all of this and much more in his report, which you can access by becoming a Spoon Plus member. Spoon Plus members get access to all of our market reports, maps and deep dives that give you an advanced understanding of where the food tech industry is headed. Get the goods right here.

Restaurant Tech From Around The Web

Luckin Coffee, one of China’s largest coffee chains and Starbucks’ main competitor in that market, is filing for bankruptcy. The company is still dealing with the fallout from a fraud scandal from 2020. Luckin said that stores would remain open for business.

The California Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit filed this week seeking to overturn Proposition 22, the controversial ballot measure that passed in November and exempts companies like DoorDash and Uber from classifying workers as employees. the Court suggested plaintiffs refile the case in a lower court. 

If it feels a little off to you that third-party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats are spending millions on themed Super Bowl ads (Cookie Monster and Wayne’s World, respectively) while restaurants and restaurant workers continue to struggle, check this quick read from the folks at Eater Chicago. In the words of Eater writer Ashok Selvam, “can you imagine Wayne and Garth using a third-party service to order from Stan Mikita’s Donuts? Game off.”

Food Tech News: Artificial Pollination for Almond Orchards, Brave Robot Available Nationwide

If you’re anything like me, the days blur together easily after months of stay-at-home orders, and you probably have to look at a calendar to determine what day it is. However, our Food Tech News is out today, which means it’s a Saturday! This week, we have stories on artificial pollination in almond orchards, Brave Robot’s nationwide expansion, Keurig’s phone app, and a fully plant-based Starbucks location.

Edete to use artificial pollination for Australian almond orchard

Edete Precision Technologies for Agriculture, an ag tech startup based in Israel, recently signed a contract with one of Australia’s largest almond orchards. This August, when the almonds trees begin to bloom, Edete will apply its artificial pollination technology to the almond trees. The company’s machines collect flowers and then separate out the pollen. The collected pollen can be stored for up to a year, and when trees are ready to be pollinated, the machines dispense the optimal amount of pollen per flower. Due to the decline of pollinators and issues like bee colony collapse disorder, crops that require insect pollination (around 75% of all crops) are at risk for severe yield declines, so Edete’s technology may become crucial in the upcoming years. The company also plans to work with almond growers in California.

Brave Robot’s animal free ice cream made in partnership with fermentation company Perfect Day Source: Perfect Day

Brave Robot is now available in 5,000 stores across US

Brave Robot, a brand of The Urgent Company, shared that its animal-free flora-based ice cream is now available in 5,000 locations across the US. The ice cream comes in eight flavors, and uses Perfect Day’s proprietary animal-free whey. Although the ice cream does not require the use of cows for milk, it does contain dairy because the whey protein is essentially an exact replica of whey protein from cows. Brave Robot ice cream is available in stores like Kroger, Sprouts, Safeway, Lassen’s, and Ralph’s throughout the US.

Keurig Commercial Remote Brew App

Keurig announces new phone controlled and touchless brewing feature

Keurig Commercial announced a new touchless feature available for its commercial coffee makers intended for workplaces. Users can download the Keurig Remote Brew App, and through the app select which coffee or specialty beverage they would like to brew. Developed with the existing Bluetooth Kit, the Remote Brew App can be used with Eccellenza Touch and Eccellenza Momentum models. This new feature was created to make coffee in a COVID-19 safe manner for those employees who may be returning to the workplace.

Photo from Starbuck’s website

Starbucks to pilot fully plant-based location

An existing Starbucks location near Seattle, Washington will be piloted for offering only plant-based menu items. This was announced by Starbucks CEO in the recent Q1 earnings call, but it is unclear when the plant-based transition will occur, or which exact location it will be. On the Starbucks website, an article was released in January 2021 that shared that plant-based items will continue to be added at Starbucks locations globally as part of the company’s sustainability initiatives. New plant-based items being trialed in the U.S. include an Impossible breakfast sandwich, vegan bagels, oat milk, and a variety of almond milk-based beverages.

Survey: More Than Half of Restaurant Sales Will be Digital by 2025

Digital sales will make up more than half, or 54 percent, of all quick-service and limited-service restaurant sales by 2025, according to new survey numbers from market research firm Incisiv. That’s 70 percent higher than pre-COVID estimates, the firm notes.

That projected growth isn’t hard to understand. It’s been an all-out dumpster-fire of a year for restaurants, with hundreds of thousands of restaurants permanently shuttered and billions of dollars already lost. Currently, restaurants across the country are reverting to off-premises-only models, which lend themselves more to minimal interactions between restaurant staff and customers.

But as we saw early on in the pandemic, even limited/quick service restaurants struggled to manage the sudden influx of takeout, curbside pickup, drive-thru, and delivery order channels. Bigger brands with money to burn and existing digital strategies have obviously fared better over the last eight months than those without many tech investments in place. As of July, Chipotle had increased its digital sales by over 200 percent thanks to the brand’s pre-COVID focus in that area. Another example is Starbucks, which as publicly said 80 percent of its orders before the pandemic were already for to-go channels.

Separately, Incisiv notes that while restaurant chains are making investments in tech, they are “not necessarily addressing the highest priorities nor the solutions that will deliver the best maximum ROI across diverse customer expectations.”

It’s a point we make all the time here at The Spoon. There are seemingly endless options for businesses when it comes to tech, but they’re not all equal in terms of the value they provide to a businesses trying to serve customers quickly, safely, and with the same quality they would get in the dining room. For example, the so-called “contactless” kits that address the in-dining room experience may become a staple of the future, but they can’t exactly add value when dining rooms are shut down. On the other hand, focusing tech investments on tools that will make digital ordering and fulfillment easier and cheaper should be a priority. To that end, Incisiv’s report urges restaurants to “make enhancements in digital tech.” Those that do, according to the report, “will be better positioned should another shutdown occur.” Which, if you hadn’t noticed, is happening as we speak.

As noted above some of the bigger QSR brands are clearly leading the charge when it comes to digital sales trends, but Incisiv says there is plenty of area for both growth and improvement. Customer satisfaction actually remains low in a few key areas. Only 40 percent of survey respondents were satisified with their pickup experience; that number drops to 25 percent for delivery. Half of guests prefer paying with a mobile wallet, but fewer than 20 percent of QSRs provide expanded payment options.

The survey found that “close to 70 percent” of restaurant chains have “stated their intent” to increase investments in mobile ordering. Over the long term, digital sales are expected to dip slightly once in-dining room service is resumed with some semblance of its former days. However, the return of the dining room won’t mean the end of off-premises, not if recent developments around condensed store formats and expanded drive-thru lanes are any indication. Incisiv also notes that share of delivery sales is expected to grow 23 percent by 2025 versus a pre-COVID forecast of 15 percent.

As the report notes, if all of this holds true, it will be QSR chains making the most progress in terms of digital ordering and setting the example for the rest of the industry. 

Time to Recirculate the To-Go Cup Debate

Since we now live in a world where the to-go order is the main attraction at restaurants, we need to start treating the issue of excess single-use packaging with a whole lot more urgency.

Clearly I’m not the only one to have that thought, as two major QSR chains made sustainability announcements of their own this week. Both are aimed at reducing the amount of plastic that winds up in landfills and the ocean — no small feat considering the billions of single-use cups, straws, and containers we throw out each year, thanks in no small part to the convenience-driven delivery and to-go craze. 

On Thursday, Starbucks, sent out an update saying its “strawless lids” are now “the standard for iced beverages” at stores in the U.S. and Canada. The lids use roughly 9 percent less plastic than the normal lid-and-straw combo. The rollout of these lids applies to company-owned and licensed Starbucks stores, and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Straws will still be available upon request. 

It’s an important milestone, especially considering Starbucks is arguably responsible for the populace’s current fixation with fancy drinks in plastic or plastic-coated cups. But it doesn’t actually remove single-use plastics from equation.

The latest initiative from McDonald’s does. This week, the company announced a partnership with zero-waste platform Loop to create a reusable cup program at McDonald’s locations in the UK. Users can opt for a reusable cup, for which they leave a small deposit that’s retrieved when they return the cup. Loop collects the empties, washes and sanitizes them, and puts them back into circulation. The concept is reminiscent of Dishcraft Robotics’ “dishes-as-a-service” model, which recently added reusable takeout containers to the items it collects, washes, and returns to the foodservice loop.

The obvious drawback here is that putting down a deposit at McDonald’s and then taking the time to return the cup is inconvenient. Inconvenience doesn’t sell with many consumers these days (which is another separate issue itself). 

A reusable cup system is, however, a bolder move than simply reducing plastic, and bold moves are what we need right now to get excessive packaging out of the foodservice world. That the McDonald’s pilot is coming from a multi-billion corporation with a $4 billion digital business is encouraging. But to become widespread, the entire restaurant industry is going to have to pitch in, from the major chains and supply companies to delivery services, mom-and-pop stores, and consumers themselves.

That’s no small ask at a time when the restaurant industry is utterly crippled from the pandemic and small chains and independent restaurants are permanently shuttering at an alarming pace. But with off-premises orders being the future of restaurants for the foreseeable future, no one can afford to shelve the glaring issue of single-use packaging for much longer, not without risking further environmental consequences.

This is the web version of our newsletter. Sign up today to get updates on the rapidly changing nature of the food tech industry.

Zomato Raises $100M, Plans IPO

Zomato, one of India’s largest food delivery services, announced this week it has raised $100 million from Tiger Global and is preparing for an IPO in 2021.

The news is just another layer of development to what’s been a very busy year for Zomato. The company bought Uber Eats’ India business in March, raised a $5 million Series J round in April, and unveiled a grocery delivery service in the same month. It had to cut 13 percent of its workforce in May (thanks, pandemic), but things are clearly looking up for the service, as it raised $62 million from Temasek and just days ago said in a blog post that “recovery trends are strong.”

A prospective IPO is another sign of that recovery. In a letter to employees reviewed by TechCrunch, Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal set “sometime in the first half of next year” as a timeline for said IPO. At the moment the company has “no immediate plans” on how it will spend the investment from Tiger Global, if it spends it at all. Goyal called the cash a “war-chest” for future M&A and for fighting price wars from competition.

Given that Zomato competes fiercely with Swiggy for the Indian food delivery market, and given the consolidation the entire third-party delivery industry is undergoing, having a war chest doesn’t seem like a bad move right now.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Fast-casual chain Sweetgreen this week launched Collections, a new digital-only menu available through the restaurant’s app and website. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, menu items are curated according to specific themes and dietary preferences/restrictions, and will make recommendations that are unique to each individual customer.

Order-ahead platform Allset has teamed up with digital ordering platform Olo to streamline the pickup order process for participating restaurants. Olo’s system lets restaurants manage menus, pricing, and order fulfillment across multiple third-party platforms, thus creating fewer manual workflows for restaurant staff.

Starting Sept. 30, NYC restaurants will be allowed to operate indoor dining rooms at 25 percent capacity. The announcement, made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week, comes just as the city gears up for the colder days ahead that will limit outdoor seating for most businesses.

McDonald’s Partners With Loop to Pilot Reusable Packaging

With the restaurant industry currently being reinvented with to-go-first experiences in mind, there’s cause to worry that the shift will add even more single-use cups, straws, and boxes to our already bulging landfills. So it makes for a small silver lining that McDonald’s today announced a partnership with Terracycle’s zero-waste platform Loop to pilot a reusable cup model.

The program will first be trialed at select McDonald’s in the UK in 2021. For a small deposit, customers will get a reusable Loop cup for their hot beverages. The deposit can be redeemed by returning the cup to any participating McDonald’s location, according to today’s press release. Loop will retrieve the used cups, wash them, and return them to the cycle.

As to whether this reusable cup program will make its way to the States, a McDonald’s spokesperson said, “The feedback collected through these packaging trials will help inform which options are scaled up or adopted in other countries around the world.”

Loop’s main business lets customers shop online for grocery, household, and beauty products from well-known brands, then get them delivered in packaging. Living up to the platform’s name, Loop  retrieves and cleans the empty containers once a customer is finished, and the cycle starts again. The company currently has partnerships with Häagen-Dazs, Tropicana, Nature’s Path Organic, and several well-known personal care brands. The service is available in select U.S. cities and is in the process of expanding to more places, including international locations.

The McDonald’s partnership comes at a time when the fight for a more sustainable restaurant has to co-exist alongside the fight against COVID-19. Some chains, notably Starbucks, have banned reusable cups for the time being, (understandably) citing safety concerns. But the sustainability issue can’t be put on hold for long, particularly since the increase in to-go orders could eventually equal an alarming increase in trash, too.

Whether you love big restaurant chains or fear they’ll be the only ones left after the dust from the restaurant industry upheaval settles, it’s worth acknowledging that they’re typically the ones with the deep enough pockets to invest in new forms of to-go containers. For its part, McDonald’s has already piloted other circular solutions for cups, including the Recup system in Germany and the chain’s participation in the NextGen Cup Challenge in the U.S.

Earlier this year, the company also completed construction on its first “net zero energy-designed restaurant” in Florida. At the time of that news, I wrote that billion-plus-dollar restaurant chains like McDonald’s, Chipotle, etc. are the ones that need to take the lead in writing the playbook for sustainability in the restaurant. Smaller restaurants — the ones that have managed to survive the fallout — still struggle to remain open, so it seems unreasonable right now to ask them to also reinvent the paper cup. 

McDonald’s, on the other hand, has a $4 billion off-premises business and a recent track record that’s heavy on the innovation front. Using some of those dollars and resources to create a more sustainable restaurant experience seem the next logical step. 

Meet the World’s First Travel Mug Made From Paper

Playing its part in fighting the world’s gigantic coffee cup waste problem, UK-based Circular&Co. today unveiled its Circular Travel Mug made from recycled single-use paper cups and designed to last a decade. The company currently has a Kickstarter campaign where backers can pre-order the mug.

This isn’t the company’s first foray into sustainable consumer products. As Ashortwalk Ltd., it created what it claimed to be the world’s first reusable cup, the “rCUP,” made from single-use coffee cups. One rebrand later, and the company is furthering its mission of creating and selling more sustainable products for consumers’ on-the-go coffee habits.

According to the Circular&Co. Kickstarter page, the newly unveiled travel mug is made from paper cups collected from coffee shops and grocery stores. The mug is fully insulated, dishwasher-safe, and, according to the company, built to last for 10 years (at which point you can recycle it). It’s also “100% leak proof” and features a handy spring-loaded lid that makes it easier to open.

One thing that is not clear from the Kickstarter page is whether the entire travel mug is made from recycled paper cups. Reviews of the aforementioned rCUP on Amazon UK suggest standard plastics are used in the lid and main body. We’ve reached out to Circular&Co. to get the details the exact materials used for the new travel mug.

It’s a weird time right now for reusable coffee mugs, with Starbucks and other major retailers “pausing” the use of reusable cups because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the disposable coffee cup culture means millions of cups, straws, lids, and other drink paraphernalia go into landfills and oceans each year. Pandemic or no, building a more sustainable coffee culture, especially here in the U.S., can’t stay de-prioritized for long without significant environmental consequences. 

Those interested in Circular&Co.’s cup can head over to the company’s Kickstarter page to pre-order. A 12-ounce mug is currently available for $13, and a $16-ounce version goes for $15. Mugs are estimated to ship in November of this year.

Food Tech News: Virtual Derby Fare Is Upon Us

The Kentucky Derby is around the corner! Not that I or many other folks will be physically present for the famed event this year. We will, however, be cooking up some classic Derby fare, courtesy of the internet. Read on for more on that as well as other food tech news bits from the last week.

Virtual Derby Menu 2020

Churchill Downs Racetrack, home of the Kentucky Derby, is once again offering an at-home Derby menu for couch-bound attendees of the famous event — of which there will be many more this year, given the venue’s reduced capacity requirements. For the event, taking place September 5, Churchill Downs has created an at-home menu fans can access online and create in their own home kitchens. 

Africa’s First High-Tech Greenhouse

Van der Hoeven Horticultural Projects has started construction on the first fully automated glass lettuce greenhouse in Africa. The greenhouse, outside Cairo, Egypt and roughly 2.5 hectares in size, will grow herbs and lettuce, while automation technology will regulate climate and plant density for more optimal growing in desert conditions.

The Profitability of Plant-Based Eggs

Eat Just, maker of the famed JUST plant-based egg, is on track to profitability, according to a report this week from Reuters. The company aims to turn an operating profit before the end of next year is also considering and initial public offering.

Target All-In on Online Grocery

Target announced this week that its grocery pickup service is now available across the U.S. The service is now available in about 85 percent of its stores. For now, only Target’s most popular items (about 750 of them) are available for pickup, though the ongoing popularity of online grocery could change that in the future.

Taco Bell Unveils New ‘Go Mobile’ Restaurant Concept

Two big trends are a foot in the world of quick-service restaurants: orders going off-premises and major chains redesigning their store formats to better meet that demand. Taco Bell is the latest major QSR player to respond to these trends. Today, the chain announced a new restaurant concept, “Go Mobile,” that emphasizes the role of digital in the restaurant experience.

Speaking in today’s press release, Taco Bell President and Global COO Mike Grams called the new format “a completely synchronized digital experience centered around streamlining guest access points.” 

To that end, the new store format includes two drive-thru lanes, with one dedicated to customers that order via the Taco Bell mobile app. New technology integrated into the app will detect when customers arrive to pick up their order and direct them as to where they can retrieve the food. (Sidenote: the tech sounds like geofencing a la Panera, but Taco Bell’s press release did not use the term.) Go Mobile will also feature curbside pickup and “bellhops,” who will take orders via tablet in the drive-thru lane and at curbside. 

Taco Bell also notes that this new store format will be physically smaller than its normal brick-and-mortar locations, which makes sense, given the reduced dining room capacity under which restaurant operate these days. 

Other QSRs have made similar moves in the last few months. Starbucks is reformatting many of its traditional cafes to act as to-go-focused locations. Chipotle, a brand not historically known for drive-thru service, is all-in on its Chipotlanes. Shake Shack is also revamping its focus to include more drive-thrus and digital-forward experiences. Even Domino’s, which has always been an off-premises business, is revamping its format to include more curbside pickup.

Taco Bell’s first Go Mobile store is set to open in the first quarter of 2021.

Takeout, delivery, and curbside pickup are still the main formats through which these big brands can reach customers at the moment. With dining rooms still operating at reduced capacity and the future of full-service restaurants still very much uncertain, we will see more QSRs rethinking their brick-and-mortar locations to fit the off-premises style that’s become, for better or worse, the new restaurant experience.