“Our cup is ubiquitous and we love it,” said Michael Kobori, director of sustainability at Starbucks. “But it’s also a ubiquitous symbol of a disposable society.”
Because the cups are disposable. When they are thrown away, the cups end up in landfills or as trash on streets and waterways. Some of them can be recycled, but recycling is not a perfect option: recyclable items end up in landfills anyway.
The best solution? “Eliminating the disposable cup,” Kobori said. He called this option the “Holy Grail”.
By 2025, the company wants to make it easy for every customer to use their own mug or pick up a ceramic or reusable mug to take away from their local Starbucks. This could mean rolling out more “borrow a mug” programs that require a deposit.
Starbucks also plans to allow customers to use their personal mugs at every Starbucks in the US and Canada by the end of next year, even if they order in advance or use a car service.
The goals don’t mean that Starbucks will get rid of paper and plastic cups. But they want to make this option less attractive. This won’t be easy to do, as most Starbucks customers are used to this simple, one-time option. But the company has a plan.
Testing Borrow-A-Cup Programs
To phase out disposables, Starbucks is considering a widespread “borrow a cup” program in which customers pay a deposit for a durable cup they take with them and return after use.
Amelia Landers, VP of Product Experience, whose team is responsible for sustainable packaging at Starbucks, expects the model to resonate more. with clients compared to other sustainability efforts.
“I think it will take the lead,” she said. We are testing several different [borrow-a-cup] programs around the world”, including “20 different iterations and in eight different markets”.
In Seattle, Starbucks tested a beta version of such a program last year.
“We have developed a new cup that has a very low environmental impact, is made from lightweight polypropylene, is ultimately recyclable, and can replace 100 disposable disposable cups,” Landers explained.
For this test, shoppers paid a $1 deposit and had to return the cup to a smart bin located in the store to get their dollar back. Customers were also rewarded for using the cup.
Kim Davies, who runs the store where the program was tested, said customers were curious about the basket, and once the baristas explained it to them, many agreed with the concept.
“Excitement and engagement were very high among my clients and my [employees]”, – she said. For the barista, the process was simple enough—they just used a reusable cup instead of a regular one for making drinks. A third party company collected the dirty cups for cleaning, so the barista didn’t have to worry about that part of the process.
Starbucks (SBUX) is running similar pilot programs in Japan, Singapore and the UK.
The model is the most promising, as it is the easiest to integrate into the daily lives of customers.
You don’t have to remember to bring your own reusable mug or, if you do, be stuck with a dirty cup for the rest of the day. And you don’t have to sit and sip coffee at Starbucks, which most people don’t have time for on weekday mornings.
But this model is still being tested, so the company wants to encourage the use of reusable mugs in other ways.
Return of the personal cup
Early in the pandemic, when people feared the coronavirus could spread easily on surfaces, Starbucks banned customers from bringing their own mugs. He has since brought that option back and is now trying to make it more attractive.
“We are testing the personal cup promotion to increase it from today from 10 cents to 50 cents,” Landers said. “We’re also going to test paying for disposable cups.” She added that the chain is also experimenting with discounts for people who use ceramic mugs provided by Starbucks in stores.
It’s simple enough. But things get a lot more complicated when customers bring their cups to a car service or order ahead of time through the Starbucks app.
A few years ago, pre-ordering or using a car service might have been quite rare. But after the pandemic, more and more customers began to come through a car service or make orders in advance.
During a February phone call with analysts, Starbucks CFO Rachel Ruggieri said that Starbucks drive-thru windows and mobile orders together account for about 70% of sales in the US-operated stores.
So to achieve its goal of ditching disposable cups, Starbucks needs to figure out how to get reusable cups through a car service and make them available to customers who pre-order.
To that end, Starbucks is testing different options at its innovation center.
“We have store layouts,” Landers said. “We have different versions of the drive-through scheme.”
Customers can simply drop off their barista cups at the cashier. But Starbucks is exploring ways to make the process smoother.
One option, Landers said, is to allow customers to leave their cups at an earlier point in the lane so that the drink is ready in their personal cup as soon as they get to the window. Another option is for baristas to pre-prepare drinks when customers place their orders and pour them into personal glasses at the display window or when they arrive at the store to pick up their order. Starbucks is also testing in-store cup washing stations.
The team is trying “different things over and over again” to figure out what might work, she said. “Now we are in the middle of all this work.”
It is imperative that Starbucks mobile ordering and delivery experiences are seamless. After just a few sluggish pickups, customers can take care of their business elsewhere.
But Starbucks also needs to be careful not to put too much extra workload on employees who already have to prepare complex custom orders at high speed.
This is especially important now. Workers across the country are considering unionizing, which goes against the wishes of company management.
Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, voted first to unionize in December. Since then, employees at several other stores have made similar efforts, and several Starbucks across the country are preparing for their own vote.
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 ardent sustainability customers don’t actually change their behavior that easily,” Landers said. “Although they really, really want to.