stores.Īlexander found out just two weeks ago that the lid she designed would be the antidote to the company’s plastic straw phase-out. It is now in the middle of testing paper straws in its U.K. Last year in Santa Cruz, Calif., Starbucks started testing out straws made from materials other than traditional plastic.
Customers who prefer or need a straw can request one made of alternative materials for use with any cold drink. They will become the standard lid for all iced drinks except Frappuccino, which will be served with a straw made from paper or PLA compostable plastic manufactured from fermented plant starch or other sustainable material. ‘It was this very small thing:’ Recyclable lid to become standard on most iced drinksįrom their debut in one initial store, the cold-cup lids now are used for a small number of drinks including Draft Nitro and Cold Foam in more than 8,000 stores in the U.S. In their place? The lid that Alexander developed. Amid ongoing company conversations about reducing waste and safeguarding the environment, Starbucks is announcing today that it will phase out plastic straws from its more than 28,000 stores worldwide by 2020, a decision that will eliminate more than 1 billion straws a year. What she didn’t realize is how impactful that strawless lid would become. “We realized we had our lid after 10 weeks of experimenting,” said Alexander, who recently began a new role as a senior sourcing analyst in the Global Sourcing department. Ultimately, what emerged was a design that featured a teardrop-shaped opening about the size of a thumbprint - a cleaner, less-ridged version of a hot cup lid. The versions that seemed most promising allowed customers to exult in the frothy foam, which Alexander calls “the hero of Nitro coffee.” Those anointed designs were then made into prototypes and shared with leadership, who would sit around, sip creamy foam through the lids and analyze their aesthetic. She sketched and she sketched, working with a supplier in Wisconsin to conjure up complex designs including a two-piece twist-lock lid and a pull-tab lid that went nowhere (too busy).
In the beginning, the assignment was limited in scope: Could Emily Alexander design a new lid for just one beverage to be used in just one store?Īlexander, an engineer in Global Research & Development at Starbucks, and her team set to work drawing up plans for a strawless lid that would showcase Starbucks’ Draft Nitro and its trademark cold foam that was being served at a Reserve store in Seattle.įor several weeks in 2016, Alexander would grab any available pen and a sheet of used printer paper when inspiration struck.
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