STiR coffee and tea magazine

34 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 4, 2021 (August / September) Dan Dicker, founder and c.e.o. of Ashort- walk Ltd., and creator of Circular Cup. Sturdy Circular Cups also are perfect for traveling. Credit: Ashortwalk Ltd. (Circular&Co.) Credit: Ashortwalk Ltd. (Circular&Co.) The power of a circular economy Since its founding, Ashortwalk has conceived and designed more than 100 other cir- cular products before eventually turning its attention to reusable cups. The inaugural product was the much talked about "rCup," which was marketed as "the first reusable coffee cup made from old paper coffee cups." "It was that product which really put us on the map," recalled Dicker. Then came the company name change to Circular&Co., which tagged along with a rebranding of "rCup" into "Circular Cup." "It was a risk given that rCup had just cemented itself in the public's mind," Dicker admitted, "but we felt it was important to use this flagship product to promote the wider circular cause. I can't stress enough how important and powerful the circular economy and circular design can be to the future of our environment." Nowadays being entirely manufactured in the UK, the raw materials used for mak- ing Circular Cups' outer insulation layer are sourced from local waste streams. "Besides used paper cups we even blend in recycled ice cream containers," divulged Dicker. "If you talk to any circular economy expert, they will tell you that the 'waste-to-new- product process' must be regionalized. The tighter this is controlled, the less chance [there is] of waste leaking into the environment and the smaller the carbon footprint becomes." Robust with a decade-long lifetime However, Circular Cups are presently still lined with food-safe polypropylene (PP #5). The choice was a conscious one, though. Sticking to one polymer type makes the prod- uct easier to recycle and gives it "a far lower carbon footprint for production, recycling and rebirth," according to Dicker. But, most importantly, it also makes the product so robust that Dicker has no hesitation insisting that a Circular Cup "lasts over 10 years." "We offer a takeback scheme with all our products to recoup that valuable material and turn it back into new cups," he said. Additionally, the company is currently develop- ing a food-grade, recycled PP made from 92% recycled content, which Dicker hopes to be ready for market in a few months. "This would be pretty groundbreaking in the industry," he pointed out. Just like KeepCup's Abigail Forsyth, Dan Dicker likewise was adamant that the idea of consumers carrying, rinsing, and reusing cups was not as far-fetched a thought as it may seem superficially. "It's never been an issue, genuinely. Behavioral change is all about habits and once it becomes part of everyday life, [users] don't see it as a chore," he explained. "We have noticed great social engagement around the cup, be- cause… it's a positive behavior change and people enjoy the challenge. Yes, carrying a reusable isn't convenient, but the pleasure of knowing you are contributing outweighs the negative." Adoption still low, but rising While the uptake of reusables has grown considerably over the past 5 years, Dicker admitted that it is still too low, hovering at around 5% to 8% of all cups used, de- pending on the market territory. "From a brand perspective, we've always felt that global behavior change around reusables can only be tackled by the bigger brands we collaborate with. We let them worry about that and focus on delivering the best product for them," he elaborated. And that effectively means that more retailers have to adopt reusables as their primary or even only "to-go cup". And Ashortwalk certainly is doing its part to make this happen. "With some of the global brands we work with, this will soon become a reality," Dicker disclosed. "For instance, McDonald's [in the UK] has just launched this exact scheme in mid-July, using a cup that we designed for them," Dicker pointed out. Mean- while, Circular Cups are already part of the Starbucks UK discount scheme and are due to be rolled out across all Star- bucks stores in the EMEA region soon. While the UK currently continues to be Ashortwalk's largest sales territory owing to a well-established local retail network, the company has seen steady growth for Circular Cup across 38 other countries as well, with distributors established in 20 of those. Not too shabby for a firm that originally started out in a small garage in Cornwall 18 years ago, eh?

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