Company tries to reduce plastic by offering edible cutlery

With a record 76 kilos of single-use plastic thrown away per year per capita in Singapore, disposable cutlery is a big environmental problem in Asia, where people eat out a lot.

In Singapore, a company offers restaurants a range of edible cutlery, packed with good vitamins and flavoured with banana or flax seeds. This company, Crunch Cutlery, is looking to gradually reduce the use of all these single-use plastic cutlery because itThis is a huge environmental problem in the region. In Singapore, but also in Southeast Asia, where it is very hot, people eat a lot outside their homes, at street stalls. Cutlery is obviously required, and there are still few regulations to try to reduce the use of single-use plastic in everyday life.

A Singaporeans throw away an average of 76 kilos of single-use plastic each year. This is a sad world record. And these plastics are rarely recycled; they mainly end up in incinerators. In other countries, they end up in landfills or even in the oceans. Crunch Cutlery therefore wants to encourage consumers to eat their cutlery directly. This involves replace plastic cutlery but also recyclable cutlery that we use in France.

These edible cutlery look a bit like big, thick potato chips shaped like a rough three-pronged fork, or an Asian soup spoon. Many recipes are designed based on what you eat. If it’s for fried noodles or another savory dish, you’ll want to choose a wholemeal spoon flavored with tomato and flax seeds. If it’s for dessert, you’ll have the choice between slightly caramelized spoons or lychee-flavored ones. In any case, these cutlery contain healthy fibers and improve the percentage of recommended daily needs.

Currently, price can be a barrier to convincing consumers to abandon their disposable cutlery.. It’s almost 80 euro cents per edible spoon. This is why the company has just started, this September, to offer a sponsorship program for its cutlery. Brands may place their name or logo on the edible spoons. This covers part of the production and they are then given almost for free to restaurants which distribute them to customers. So iThere is no price increase for the end consumer.