Tully's Adopts Eco-Friendly Coffee Cup, Makes Fair Trade Pledge

Published September 19, 2007 @ 03:59PM PT

Tully's launches new ecotainer at over 400 locations

by Sustainable Food News
September 19, 2007 Tully's Coffee Corporation said Wednesday it is the first major coffee retailer to adopt the ecotainer, a fully renewable and compostable paper cup for its hot beverages. The Seattle-based coffee roaster supplies over 400 company-operated and franchised retail stores in Washington, California, Idaho, Arizona and Japan. Separately, Tully's said all of its espresso drinks now will be made with 100 percent fair trade and organic ingredients. The company first rolled out the fair trade espresso last year at the University of Washington. Last month, Tully's cited "volatile stock market conditions" and put its plans for a $34 million initial public offering of its stock on hold. Albertsons grocery stores recently swapped in Tully's coffee shops and swapped out Starbucks at four of its Washington stores with plans to do the same to six more stores in the West. Multinational paper producer International Paper developed the ecotainer hot cup with DaniMer Scientific, LLC, which modifies a corn-based polylactic (PLA) acid resin from NatureWorks LLC to make a new material that can be applied to paperboard to create a water-resistant barrier. This new material replaces the petrochemical plastic used in standard packaging today.

After use, and under the proper conditions, the cups breaks down into water, carbon dioxide and organic matter. In conventional coffee cups, the inner surface is lined with a petroleum-based plastic to prevent leaking. Waterbury, Vt.-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which licenses the Newman's Own Organics coffee line, was the first to launch the all-natural paper cup for hot beverages reducing annual consumption of non-renewable petrochemical materials by 250,000 pounds. Tully's has also established an in-store collection program to divert the used cups and other compostable food waste from local landfills by partnering with local compost and recycling organizations to establish the first waste management program of its kind.

It is estimated that as a result, more than 70 percent of food and packaging waste from Tully's retail stores will now be diverted from local landfills. Cedar Grove Organics will collect and compost Tully's new green cup at local facilities in Everett and Maple Valley, Wash.

"With American consumers using more than 16 billion paper hot cups every year, leaders in the Specialty Coffee retail industry need to take action," said Rob Martin, vice president of Merchandising and Production for Tully's Coffee.