You can now have your coffee and eat it too
You’re tired so you go to a coffee shop and you grab a coffee. You have a fifteen minute break at work and you run down to the nearest Starbucks to grab a coffee. You’re on the way to work and you grab a Tim’s coffee to start your day. These are habits that we all pick up and become part of our daily lives. It is in our nature as humans to waste. I consider myself environmentally friendly, and I recycle my cup after using it, but it’s hard to bring a tumbler around with you everywhere.
We talk about the concept of product life cycle and using a product from cradle to grave. We look at suitable solutions regarding how we should recycle something and how can we create the least waste. McDonough and Braungart look at a new perspective of cradle to cradle and this closed loop system. The new perspective views materials like nature which circulates nutrients in healthy, safe metabolisms. Therefore once a product has been used, it is reused for a different purpose.
KFC has bought into this philosophy and has created edible coffee cups. These coffee cups are made from biscuit, wrapped in sugar paper and lined with a layer of heat resistant chocolate (Alexander, 2015). As one of the 4Cs of sustainable marketing, consumers will be sustainable if it is convenient for them. For many, splitting up the contents of a coffee cup is often a hassle and you see many consumers throw the whole thing in the garbage. KFC has done a great job in making this as convenient as possible. There is no waste when it comes to these cups. This product is currently in trial stages but hopefully other companies will start to make their cups edible to reduce waste from landfills. On another note, the coffee cup can also double as a snack!
Thanks for your post, Kristen! I saw this article too and immediately thought of our class.
Aside from the fact that coffee may not resonate with KFC’s brand, I think that the edible cup idea is definitely innovative. The edible cups are convenient and consumers don’t have to do any extra work to recycle the cup- they just need to eat it! It would be inspiring to see this translated into other companies as well- if KFC doesn’t patent it.
What I am wondering though, is how exactly will the chocolate be heat resistant for a drink that can potentially burn your skin? Thoughts aside, I do hope this will be something of the future- especially at Starbucks and large coffee chains where they produce the most waste from coffee cups.
Hi Sammie,
Apparently the cups are made from “heat resistant white chocolate”, although I am not sure how this works. I hope that more coffee companies will implement this too! It’s kind of similar to eating an ice cream cone, it holds the ice cream and you can eat it after too!
Great post Kirsten! Right off the bat, the most surprising thing to me is that KFC has coffee…? While I don’t think I will be trying their brew anytime soon, I do love this idea. Perhaps it would be a design better implemented as their food containers? Imagine a massive bucket of KFC that also doubles as a delicious cookie, likely feeding your family and the next… That would make more sense to me than coffee. In any case, I hope this trend of eatable (or at least compostable… depending on the questionable taste of these “biscuits”) containers becomes commonplace!
Maybe other coffee companies can implement this edible cup and they can work together in a partnership to create this. The idea of a bucket made of a cookie is great, but would be so unhealthy! I guess KFC already isn’t the best to eat…but I guess the family could get their dessert too?