Air New Zealand has begun trialing an innovation in its battle against waste — edible coffee cups.

The vanilla-flavored cups are baked from a biscuit base. They are leak-proof.

Niki Chave, of the airline, said that the company serves more than 8 million cups of coffee a year and it has been using compostable*, plant-based cups for some time. It was aiming to “remove these totally from landfills.”

“We’ve been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company Twiice to explore the future of edible coffee cups,” Chave said. “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.”

Chave says the airline would continue to trial the edible coffee cups and would work with Twiice and others to explore options that could make it a viable longterm product for the airline.

Twiice says the cup will not crumble like a biscuit, and will “stay crisp at least as long as it takes to drink your coffee, and longer.”

“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,” Twiice founder Jamie Cashmore said.

This isn’t the only move Air New Zealand has made to go greener in the skies. In July, the airline announced that condiments* like salad dressing and soy sauce would be served in small reusable bowls instead of individual plastic packets.

(SD-Agencies)