Photo: Canva
August 22, 2023
Will America’s Coffee Drinkers Embrace Reusable Cups?
Starbucks continues to make progress with its reusable cup tests, including letting customers bring in their own cups for a discount, borrow cups in a variety of ways, and even wash their cups inside shops.
“Choosing reusables is a new habit for many customers,” Starbucks said in a statement. “Starbucks’ behavioral science-based research shows ease and convenience are foundational.”
In the latest test running from Aug. 14 through Oct. 22, customers at 12 Starbucks stores in Northern California can:
- Bring their own personal cup in café or drive-thru
- Be offered a Borrow A Cup from Starbucks
- Choose For Here Ware, a reusable ceramic or glass cup for customers who opt to sit and stay in café
Customers bringing in their “clean personal cup” receive 10 cents off their purchase plus 25 Bonus Stars for Starbucks Rewards members. Customers return borrowed cups to bins operated by TURN Systems that collect cups and track return behavior.
A 100% reusables test has also been ongoing since May at participating Arizona State University campus stores. Every customer who brings in their own cup or reuses a Borrow A Cup from a previous visit receives a $1 discount on their beverage order. Customers can also return their Borrow A Cup to special return bins around campus.
The participating campus locations also allow customers to wash their personal or borrowed cups at special mini-washing machines “right at the counter in the time it takes to complete their order.”
Finally, addressing the fact that the majority of orders are to-go, Starbucks successfully tested a program enabling customers to bring their own personal cups in the drive-thru in select Colorado stores for the 10 cents off/25 Bonus Stars benefit. Starting in 2024, customers will be able to bring their personal cups to any Starbucks location in North America, whether walk-in, drive-up, or mobile.
Other coffee shops similarly offer discounts for customers who bring their own reusable cups, as well as other swap schemes. Paper cups supporting hot drinks require plastic linings to prevent leakage, and that makes them hard to recycle.
Starbucks said the program supports its goal to cut its waste footprint in half by 2030, with single-use cups accounting for 20% of the chain’s global waste.
Discussion Questions
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What incentives, convenience benefits, or messaging will America’s coffee drinkers require to shift to reusable over single-use cups? What lessons can be taken from efforts to reduce the use of plastic bags, plastic straws, and other single-use items?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
Gary Sankary
Retail Industry Strategy, Esri
Brandon Rael
Strategy & Operations Transformation Leader
Lucille DeHart
Principal, MKT Marketing Services/Columbus Consulting
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This is a good idea from Starbucks to try and reduce waste. I think keeping prices the same but offering a discount for using your own cup is the sensible option as increasing prices for not using your own cup might have met some customer resistance, which would have impacted on sales. One potential issue is the number of people who bring reusable cups back. Starbucks has trialed this, so it has clearly worked in the locations where tested. However, if rolled out I wonder how many people would forget to bring back cups or, even worse, discard them. Maybe an incentive for bringing cups back is also needed – I know they offered to enter people into a prize draw in some of the trial programs.
Consumers embrace sustainable solutions that don’t inconvenience them. I was in London last week an pressed cardboard utensils have replaced plastic. Starbucks is ahead of the game here.
Think of the incredible positive impact this would have to our environment. Starbucks contributes so much waste that if it were to implement this successfully, it would be wonderful. Starbucks started by emulating the coffee culture in Italy. Italy, however, has always, and continues to use and reuse real coffee cups, whether the large size for cappuccinos or lattes, or the small cup for espressos. For Barista’s and customers alike. this is the normal way and hopefully will eventually be the normal and better way here and all over the world for the sake of our planet.
First, I love the idea. There are practical considerations, though; what if I’m bringing in a REALLY big cup? Will Starbucks price coffee by the ounce?
Like the horse troughs people used bring to 7-Eleven on free Slurpee day? 😉
Absolutely! Think of those big Yetis.
Dunkies has done this for years – I still have my to go cup. Discounts are the only thing that will work. Nobody has yet made a functional green initiative.
Great idea, with lots of good intentions. Can you actually train customers to bring their reusable cups to the store consistently? Using myself as an example; not very likely.
I want to use reusable bags at the grocery store, remembering to put them in the car less than 25% of the time when I go to the store. The key is to make it seamless for customers, and it looks like there are some ideas here that could help with that.
I hope this takes off and gets adopted at mass. Even a 25% decrease in waste is still a significant accomplishment.
The irony is that we need an incentive in a world which appears convinced the earth will become a second sun in the next 30 years. As a family, we were active users of reusable, Starbucks cups until the pandemic forced everyone into single use cups. We were very happy to see the service return. I think finding a way to make the use of reusables through the drive-thru and and on mobile orders without affecting the convenience of those two services is the greatest challenge. I also think that the $.10 “reward,” albeit small, is better than the perceived punishment of paying for plastic bags at places like grocery stores. The key is to make it easy and a natural part of the experience.
Sustainability matters, especially with the emerging consumer segment force known as GenZ. Considering Starbucks’s size, scale, and economic impact, providing incentives for customers to use their reusable cups is an outstanding solution to help mitigate the significant waste generated by coffee houses, QSRs, and other takeaway operations.
The unique opportunity for Starbucks is to apply some gamification aspects to drive a more sustainable future. With their already highly used mobile app, they can integrate and provide some incentives to bring your reusable cups through additional points, discounts, and double-point days. By tying the loyalty mobile app with its sustainability strategies, we have a winner on our hands.
Starbucks, or as they are affectionally known by GenZ, “Starbies,” has a chance to make a meaningful impact as we drive to a more sustainable future.
Starbucks is losing valuable marketing. There is nothing more powerful than to see a sea of white with green logo cups populating a venue/office/street. Be that as it may, this is on brand for the coffee giant. The discount is the right approach. Not only is a “bring your own cup” saving the environment, it also saves $$$. Retailers should apply the same approach with bags and even self-checkout.
Absolutely in support of sustainability efforts, just wonder how the convenience/speed of ordering ahead can be supported this way. If it means adding to a wait that has been basically removed, its an inconvenience which will probably lose out for some. I can imagine methods, simply haven’t heard of proposed solutions.
That’s the
flyvery large dragonfly in the ointment. I order ahead of time so that I’m not idling in the drive-through lane. What’s the carbon trade-off?In the short term discounts are going to help accelerate the shift. In parallel the sustainable value of the solution will also continue to be a driver for adoption. An important factor will to keep a reasonable initial price of selling refillable cups. This is a trend that will continue to grow….look at the number of people filling water bottles in the Airports.
I hope this catches on! A ridiculous amount of trash walking out of Starbucks every day…only “hurdle” I see is minor-when somebody (okay, me!) is a tea drinker and uses the mobile app to order ahead (primarily because the water is SO hot you need to wait at least ten minutes before you can drink any), then this program will not work. I know, I know, first world problem, but still.
I don’t think any (or many) would object to a reusable cup. I can see where the frequent/daily customer can easily walk in with a reusable cup. The infrequent customer may want to, but has the cup somewhere with the reusable shopping bags he forgets to bring in the store. It’s a matter of having a convenient manner of storing the dirty cup and easily accessing the same cup for the next use. Cleaning or rinsing out the cup won’t be the barrier. I believe it’s (at least for me an infrequent customer) where do I put it when not in use? I purchased a reusable cup at the theatre for the next time I go to a show there. Odds on if I remember the cup?
Over the next 5-10 years, I expect a meaningful percentage of consumers to adopt reusable cups and other reusable and refillable packaging as awareness of the issues caused by single-use packaging and regulatory pressure grow.
Keys to success for reuse seem to be:
Along with solutions like compostable single-use disposable cups (like Gaeastar, for example), a great deal of packaging waste can be eliminated in ways that are commercially viable and maintain or improve the customer experience.
For customers, Starbucks can’t go wrong with this idea. Internally (for their employees) they need to make sure the operation continues to flow smoothly. Offering a discount may be an incentive for people to be “greener,” but the initiative will set well with younger customers regardless of the financial incentive. Our CX research found a social cause, in this case reducing waste, that 43% of consumers believe it is important that a company has a social cause – only 24% say it’s not. GenZ and Millennials lead the way. 60% of Gen Z would be willing to pay more if a brand had a social cause that was important to them.
BYOC seems like the most logical approach (not that there aren’t sanitation issues).
I don’t like being a downer, but I just don’t envision a lot of progress being made here: many will question – rightly or wrongly – how important an issue this is, and even among those who DO think it matters, “wanting to do something” is much easier than actually doing it.
Looking back to 2019, Starbucks and other cafes had these programs but some went away during Covid due to an abundance of caution. These are not necessarily new strategies but strategies that have been tweaked and repositioned. For example, In 2019 most cages that I went to offered ceramic cups for customers that wanted a real cup in the store. Choose for here-ware is the new name for ceramic cups.
Nonetheless, I applaud Starbucks for exploring these strategies to reduce cardboard and paper use. With 35,000+ stores and the volume of traffic and propensity toward single-use cups the daily and annual pile of paper and cardboard is immense. The key is to make the requested customer change convenient, interesting even fun.
Starbucks is hitting two very important areas with its reusable cup program – cost savings and sustainability. A recent study by NielsenIQ found that 78% of US consumers say a sustainable lifestyle is essential to them. By increasing incentives for their customers to bring this passion for reusable cups to the world of coffee and tea, they’re showing an understanding of the marketplace. Especially with the option for customers to affordably wash and borrow cups in-the-moment. One of the biggest roadblocks for sustainable initiatives like reusable cups or bags is that people often forget them at home. Long-term, offering these kinds of alternatives help encourage the positive habit and brand loyalty.
In this economic climate, offering such a significant discount is another very compelling reason for customers to participate aside from minimizing waste. The incremental build of this effort on Starbucks’ part is a lesson in making effective changes in customer behavior while driving demand for more. It will be interesting to see how their drive-through program succeeds as they progress to the next phase.