Company will trial new greener cups in
several markets worldwide in the coming year, roll out new
strawless lids in the U.S. and Canada, and provide customers an
opportunity to digitally trace their coffee’s journey from seed to
cup.
Sipping your hot coffee from a paper cup that you can recycle or
compost in your community. Enjoying a cold coffee beverage with a
recyclable, strawless lid instead of a conventional plastic straw.
And checking the Starbucks mobile app to see the journey of your
packaged coffee beans as they were grown, processed, traded and
roasted.
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Starbucks customers in New York, San
Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and London will help test new Greener
Cups that will be both recyclable and compostable in those
municipalities’ facilities. Starbucks will choose the cup
technologies from NextGen Cup Challenge winners announced earlier
this month, working with expertise and support from the NextGen
Consortium. (Photo: Business Wire)
Starbucks leadership will unveil progress and plans on all these
fronts at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders, noting that
sustainable coffee, served sustainably is an area of particular
passion for Starbucks and its more than 380,000 partners
(employees) around the world.
“It was at our shareholders meeting one year ago that we
launched multi-year initiatives around greener cups and digitally
traceable coffee,” said Kevin Johnson, president and ceo of
Starbucks. “Today thanks to many valuable collaborations, we’re
seeing significant, tangible progress toward a greener future.”
Over the next year in several markets worldwide, the company
will trial new, greener cups. Shareholders will
hear the news today as they sip coffee from one of the cup
technologies that will be trialed. Starbucks customers in New York,
San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and London will help test a few
different cups that will be both recyclable and compostable in
those municipalities’ facilities. Starbucks will choose the cup
technologies from NextGen Cup Challenge winners announced earlier
this month, working with expertise and support from the NextGen
Consortium.
Starbucks initiated the Consortium last spring with Closed Loop
Partners, and its mission includes identifying cup technologies
that can be both recyclable and compostable on a global scale. In
addition, the Consortium aims to leverage the scale of its powerful
members and industry experts – which a year later include not only
Starbucks but also another founding partner McDonald’s, along with
supporting partners The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé, Yum! Brands,
Wendy’s and advisory partner the World Wildlife Fund – to work with
municipalities to increase acceptance of these new paper cups in
recycling and composting programs by showing their value and
ability to be recovered and diverted from landfills.
The Consortium’s work supports Starbucks many efforts to
minimize its environmental footprint, which include a goal made in
2016 to double the recycled content, recyclability and the
reusability of its cups by 2022.
“It is with great intention that we move forward with highly
collaborative and innovative work to bring both recyclable and
compostable cups to scale around the world,” Johnson said. “We are
reimagining the future for Starbucks, and for the more than 30,000
communities we serve each day, with a great sense of responsibility
for a more sustainable planet.”
“We applaud Starbucks speed in committing to test NextGen
winners that were identified less than a month ago, and the
innovative collaboration at work here among so many global food and
beverage companies,” said Kate Daly, Executive Director of the
Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “We look
forward to continuing to build on this momentum, so that we can
help recyclable and compostable options be the norm rather than the
exception for to-go cups.”
Starbucks will roll out new lightweight, recyclable strawless
lids to all stores in the United States and Canada in the next
year. This is a key milestone as the company works to phase out
plastic straws from its more than 30,000 stores worldwide by 2020,
eliminating more than 1 billion straws a year – a goal that was
announced last July.
Newly redesigned, lightweight recyclable strawless lids will
roll out this summer to Starbucks locations in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Indianapolis and Toronto,
while the rest of the U.S. and Canada will receive them by early
2020.
The new lids have 9% less plastic than the current lid and
straw. Frappuccino® drinks and other blended beverages will
continue to have a different, domed lid made from recyclable
plastic and will be accompanied by a straw, except where local law
prohibits it. Starbucks is testing alternative material straws for
blended beverages and is exploring some of this month’s winning
NextGen technologies that could apply to straws. (Plastic straws
will continue to be available upon request for Starbucks customers
who need or request them.)
“We are pleased to see Starbucks exploring more ways to reduce
its overall plastic footprint less than a year after first
announcing its decision to phase out plastic straws,” said Susan
Ruffo, managing director for international initiatives at Ocean
Conservancy. “Redesigning products and packaging to be more
sustainable is a long-term commitment, not a one-time decision, and
Starbucks is clearly in for the long haul. We look forward to
seeing how the company continues to do its part to fight ocean
plastic and we hope others follow suit.”
“Starbucks is invested in developing solutions that seek to
improve the sustainability of their products,” said Erin Simon,
Director of Sustainability R&D at World Wildlife Fund. “When
companies begin to rethink their plastic footprint, innovation,
research and measurement are the key elements needed to set them on
a path toward continuous improvement.”
Starbucks will preview a feature for the Starbucks mobile app
that shows its coffee beans' journey from bean to cup. Senior
vice president of Global Coffee & Tea Michelle Burns will
unveil for shareholders a future feature for the Starbucks mobile
app. The reveal will accompany an on-stage tasting of digitally
traceable Starbucks Pike Place® Roast, the package of which, in the
future app feature, can be scanned to see its journey from origin
to the package.
As the audience will sip their Pike Place from one of the new
greener cups the company will trial, they’ll learn that 80% of
their cup’s coffee beans came from Colombia and 20% came from
Brazil. They’ll see the beans are verified as 100% ethically and
sustainably sourced; information about Starbucks responsible
sourcing standards and open-source Farmer Support Center in
Colombia; where the beans were roasted (in Kent, Wash.); and
brewing tips for a perfect cup.
Now one year into a two-year project to explore the benefits of
digital traceability, Burns emphasizes Starbucks ambition of
greater empowerment for coffee farmers as customers better
understand where their coffee comes from and who grows it.
Eventually, customers will be able to use the Starbucks mobile app
to trace the journey of their Starbucks packaged coffee.
“We’re thrilled to be working with Starbucks and its suppliers
on engaging coffee farmers in real, two-way dialogue on this
topic,” said Bambi Semroc, Vice President of Sustainable Markets
and Strategy for Conservation International, which is conducting
farmer interviews in Costa Rica, Rwanda and Colombia for the
project. “We are innovating to help connect coffee drinkers with
coffee communities, with the goal to return more value to farmers
by first listening to their stories, their knowledge and their
needs.”
Costa Rican Coffee Institute (ICAFE) has also been focused on
the importance of access to information in coffee farming
communities. Xinia Chaves, Executive Director of ICAFE said, “We’ve
learned in the past year that collecting and communicating
transparent information throughout the entire coffee value chain of
Café de Costa Rica has an enormous impact for all the actors that
take part in it.”
About Starbucks
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to
ethically sourcing and roasting high-quality arabica coffee.
Today, with more than 30,000 stores around the globe, Starbucks is
the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world.
Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding
principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for
every customer through every cup. To share in the experience,
please visit us in our stores or online at
https://stories.starbucks.com/ and www.Starbucks.com.
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