Air New Zealand trials edible coffee cups on its flights

With sustainability at the forefront of people’s minds, airlines are thinking of innovative ways to become more eco-friendly.

At present, Air New Zealand serves more than eight million cups of coffee per year and, while the cups they currently use are compostable, the carrier has come up with a new alternative: edible coffee cups.

The airline has been trialling the biscuit-based, leak-proof and vanilla-tasting cups with customers in the air and on the ground and the carrier says they have been a ‘big hit’.

Air New Zealand’s Senior Manager of Customer Experience Niki Chave says: “We’ve been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company ‘twiice’ to explore the future of edible coffee cups, which are vanilla flavoured and leakproof. 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.”

Air New Zealand’s goal is to completely remove the cups it currently uses from landfill.

Twiice co-founder, Jamie Cashmore says: “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.”

Cashmore added that Twiice is working on extending its edible range of crockery and expects it to rollout next year.