grumpyf1

Do you think your latte is a lotta money? Or your cappuccino needs a price cap? Spare a thought for Boston Tea Party (BTP), an independent coffee chain, who voluntarily banned single use cups last year. It was an expensive decision – to the tune of £250,000. From June 2018, the chain’s 22 stores decided to put planet before profit, and told their customers they had to bring a reusable cup, pay a deposit on one that they could return, or drink their hot beverage of choice in the branch. v A bold decision and one that has proven costly. Owner Sam Roberts realised this would happen, and included the loss in his plans. With normal annual sales of £1m worth of takeaway coffees, a 25% drop is a big hit for a relatively small organisation. Finding that offering 25p off for customers with their own reusable cup didn’t really work (just 5% showed up with cup), BTP decided to really go for it. Roberts has challenged the bigger chains to follow-suit, saying “We felt this was a financial ...

Never forget... How quickly we forget. This week, we’re all vexed about the amount of plastic packaging we use, and applauding Iceland for saying they’re going to phase out the use of it on their own-brand products by 2023. I was delighted to see some of my Tesco fruit and veg arrive loose in a brown paper bag when our delivery arrived at the weekend. First time ever, mind. But it was only a couple of weeks ago that disposable coffee cups were the enemy of the environment, and column inches were filled discussing the potential effectiveness of a ‘Latte Levy’ of 25p per cup for these single-use villains. I’ve got another suggestion to put forward, which you can ponder whilst you enjoy your next Taxachino. How about a priority queue? You bring your own re-useable cup along, and by waving it in the air (and maybe in the increasingly angry faces of the cup-less) you get to move up the queue until you are behind other ever-so-slightly-smug cup claspers. Apart from the warming dr...