Air New Zealand trialling edible in-flight coffee cups

Air New Zealand has started trialling edible coffee cups to minimise waste on board.

The airline serves more than eight million cups of coffee on board its airlines every year.

The company currently uses compostable, plant-based cups but, is experimenting with ways to “remove these [cups] totally from landfills”.

Enter the vanilla-flavoured, leak-proof edible coffee cup.

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The airline has partnered up with Twiice, a New-Zealand based company that produces edible cups that double up as dessert bowls, for the trial.

It is looking into ways to make this solution a viable long-term product for use on-board all of its planes.

“We've been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company Twiice to explore the future of edible coffee cups,” said Nike Chave, a representative for Air New Zealand.

“The cups have been a big hit with the customers who have used these and we've also been using the cups as dessert bowls.”

Those concerned about the durability of these cups needn’t worry, claims Twiice founder James Cashmore.

He says they will “stay crisp at least as long as it takes to drink your coffee, and longer.”

“It's terrific that Air New Zealand has partnered with us to showcase to its customers and the world that a little bit of Kiwi ingenuity and innovation could have a really positive impact on the environment while at the same time delivering a really cool and tasty customer experience,” added Cashmore.

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Air New Zealand is aiming to be the world’s “least unsustainable” airline.

In September this year, the company released a sustainability report to stay accountable to these goals.

Among the sustainability highlights, the company had removed or replaced nearly 55 million plastic items with lower impact alternatives.

Sustainability has become an area of growing concern in the past year, with a number of businesses looking into measures to make their businesses more eco-conscious.

Earlier this week, clothes retailer H&M announced it is trialling a clothes rental service for shoppers and Holland & Barrett launched the high street’s first reusable period-wear range in September.

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