Borrow. Return. Repeat: Enna Chocolate of Exeter Goes Greener with Reusable Cups

Article response by Natasha Gaffer, Forever Ware CEO

Read the article here: Borrow. Return. Repeat: Enna Chocolate of Exeter goes greener with reusable cups

Customers of Enna Chocolate, the town’s celebrated chocolate factory and café, are now able to enjoy their to-go coffees and, at the same time, take a stand on the environment.

Enna Chocolate has launched a program in which customers can rent either a 12- or 16-ounce insulated stainless steel mug with a deposit of $5. During their next coffee run, customers can swap it for a new clean mug and have an indefinite borrowing cycle.

“When we opened, we were committed to using all compostable products for our café. As much as composting is better for the environment in some ways, reducing our waste is the most important factor in preventing bioplastics from going into the environment.” Enna Grazier, Enna Chocolate owner

Enna is one of our customers that is taking a stand for the environment while providing a better experience for consumers. It was great to see that within the first five days of launching their reuse program, they had already checked out half of their available mugs. The process for washing the reusable mugs falls right in line with how they currently wash their ceramic cups which makes adoption easier than working with reuse programs that wash the containers offsite.

“Customers are excited, and it just feels like it's a big missing piece of our food and service industry in the Seacoast and New England. I think a lot of people are wanting this sort of thing, they just don’t know that this is what they want.” Enna Grazier, Enna Chocolate owner

Like Enna, many of the coffee businesses that we work with continue to allow consumers to bring in their own mugs but we often hear that personal travel mugs present difficulties for baristas because of inconsistent shapes and size. During the Coronavirus pandemic it was also clear that staff didn't want to touch dirty consumer mugs or handle them in their sterilized kitchen spaces so we often hear that it's nice that Forever Ware reusable mugs are returned at the dish bin before consumers reorder at the counter.

In a poll that Grazier did among her customers, she found more than 85% of them did not dispose of the compostable paper cups properly. Those cups ended up in a recycling bin, which ended up in landfill. Enna Grazier, Enna Chocolate owner

In many cases, we see that business owners are prioritizing compostable takeout packaging because consumers are demanding sustainable options, however, consumers don't have access to commercial composting services to compost them properly anyway when they bring them home or to work. It's also not uncommon to see businesses offering compostable packaging and then also not offering compost bins onsite. Reusable takeout packaging solves this problem.

“I want this to extend and grow beyond my café. We really want customers to associate this program much like borrowing a book from the library.” Enna Grazier, Enna Chocolate owner