Innovation

Maria, a co-owner of the cafe Summer Coffee, has extensive experience in the restaurant business. For 10 years she and her husband had been running a coffee shop where the target audience was customers over 40 years old. However, several years ago they decided to open a new modern cafe for younger people. Today, to stand out in a competitive market, the Summer Coffee team are constantly improving the café’s operations by introducing various new features, such as vegetarian desserts on the menu and a “green” interior design.

Maria and her husband decided to replace the usual plastic straws for coffee cocktails with reusable iron ones as their company promotes healthy lifestyle and care for the environment. This innovation attracts the attention of the coffee shop visitors and its subscribers on Instagram because such straws cannot be found in any other coffee shop or cafe in Perm. In addition, these straws are easy to clean with a special brush.

Maria emphasized that this innovation is not only a way to surprise the customers but also something that helps her business to take care of the environment, even if only a little, as such straws are more environmentally friendly than the plastic ones.

Inspiration

The owners of the coffee shop are motivated by a constant desire to surprise their customers while following the fashion trends. To create a place that will be an island of warmth and summer in a dim and gray city, to please customers with delicious and extraordinary coffee drinks – these are the aims that drive the founders.

Telling visitors about the opportunities that will open up to them if they refuse to consume plastic and begin to take care of their health and the environment is another source of inspiration for Maria.

“This is an amazing opportunity to help our friends and the residents of our city discover something that can improve their lives and health,” Maria told us.

This idea is a result of a long search. “First year as a coffee shop owner I began to think about the environmental impact of our business and look for solutions. When I learned about the use of iron straws, I really liked it. I decided we should have them,” Maria shared with us.

Overall impact

Summer Coffee is currently the first and the only company in Perm which has completely switched from disposable plastic straws to the iron ones. Due to this innovation, consumption of plastic in the city can decrease. As iron straws are reusable, they allow not only to limit the use of plastic but also to reduce the business costs.

Business benefit

As we mentioned above, At the moment, Summer Coffee is the only coffee shop in Perm that uses iron straws. Most visitors regard this as something unusual because they have not seen such straws in other coffee shops in the city. This uniqueness attracts new visitors who want to try drinking coffee using iron straws and to take photos with them. Thus, this distinctive feature of the coffee shop is its competitive advantage.

It is worth noting that the cost of such straws is higher than of the ordinary plastic ones. Moreover, because iron straws are not disposable, they have to be bought less often. The investment in the straws paid off almost at once. Maria said, “we have covered the costs of this purchase recently. Well, the realization that we are saving, at least a little bit, the world from the decomposition of plastic cannot but please us.”

Social and environmental benefit

The innovation of Summer Coffee is consistent with the sustainable development goal to establish sustainable consumption and production patterns. Today there is a big problem of pollution of the environment by plastic, which decomposes for several hundred years and contains chemicals that cause severe harm to nature.

The coffee shop management decided to reduce the consumption of plastic and replace plastic straws with iron ones that are not disposed of immediately after the first use and can last much longer. Furthermore, the decomposition period of iron straws is much shorter. Maria hopes that other coffee shops, cafes and catering companies in Perm will notice this innovation and follow her lead. The coffee shop team also talk about the innovation on their Instagram. Maria noted that in Perm “...the culture of using reusable devices is not common,” but she hopes that this culture will begin to develop and their Instagram posts about the benefit of giving up plastic will not be in vain.

Interview

Maria Harchenko, co-owner