How we can solve the food delivery industry’s trash problem

Forbes estimates that the global online food delivery market will be worth 200 Billion dollars by 2025. If one of the meals delivered is worth 10 dollars that is 20 Billion meals delivered through online ordering in 2025.

And if each of these $10 meals fit in a 9" x 6" x 3" container …

Picture credit EyeEm

…we could build a bridge between earth and moon with the containers left after meals are finished!

20B x 9’’ = 2.8M miles vs. average distance between moon and earth ~239k miles (bridge would be ~5 ft wide), picture credit EyeEm

Most of these containers end up in landfills and are not recycled so they will stay on earth for a very long time.

So this is important.

What if there was a way to eliminate that amount of trash?

There has been some focus on recyclable or compostable containers but with the broken recycling system in the US that will only get us so far. For recycling, the boxes need to be clean; for composting, they need to end up somewhere to breathe and not in a landfill (e.g. the city of LA doesn’t even have a dedicated pick up of compost).

I believe a circular system of reusable containers is the best solution we have. But would there be a market for that and desired by users?

To test the concept, I reached out to my 1,155 Facebook friends and the 1,897 members of local Zero Waste LA group with a couple of questions: “Do you love the convenience of food delivery? But you loathe the amount of trash it leaves you with? And you don’t even trust that the boxes are properly recycled?” and ask them to fill out a Google form survey. 77 responded! Maybe not a large N but a 2.5% response rate to a Facebook post is pretty good. And sufficient to see that the topic hit a nerve.

Now you can say that the selection is biased by the prompt posted and asking people who identify as environmentally conscious. But this would exactly be the target group of early adopters for this solution. In fact, 20% of the sample always uses a reusable coffee mug and about 40% most times or sometimes. This indicates a high degree of fit with the target group.

While most of the respondents are pretty satisfied with aspects of online food delivery, more than 90% are not happy with the packaging.

For everyone who was not satisfied, I asked why they weren’t. The top reason was the environmental impact with 86%.

Would people’s purchasing behavior change if they would have different packaging solutions? Yes! Almost 85% said they potentially would order more often and 83% potentially would pay a premium for better packaging.

Not a bad indication for market demand.

But we want to know more, right? I proposed a more specific solution.

Imagine a service that allows you to enjoy a take-out meal without the unappealing food packaging and heaps of trash. You can opt in on your favorite delivery app and receive a reusable container. And when you are done, it is simply picked up for cleaning and reuse.

How much per order would they be willing to pay? Using the van-Westendorp pricing method for this, the survey indicates a sweet spot for the premium at $4 per order. This would need further validation especially when thinking about the revenue model (e.g. per order vs. subscription, flat fee vs. % of order value) but is a good starting point.

As expected, there are a couple of constraints future customers would like to see being taken care off.

1. It has to be an absolute seamless experience and not creating any extra effort (39% are concerned about inconvenience).
2. There has to be an extra level of trust that the multi-use containers are clean (36% are concerned it’s not sanitary).
3. We need some more evidence about the environmental footprint of collect & wash vs. recycling/composting especially because it adds another pick-up and hence more CO2 emissions as well as water usage (29% suspect it might not be the most environmentally friendly approach).

Overall, I’m very encouraged by the results and believe in the potential of a circular platform using reusable meal containers to solve the packaging waste problem in the growing food delivery industry. Do you agree? Do you think the survey results are convincing?

And what’s next? After confirming desirability, I would like to move on to feasibility — what would it take to build and scale a platform like that.

• Operationally, given that a solution like this relies on a number of players and especially restaurants and the delivery platforms, I’m planning to engage the existing food delivery ecosystem. So if you have any contacts in the LA restaurant scene (preferably managers who own the purchasing decision for their take-out containers) or know anyone at UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub/Seamless, Postmates or ChowNow, please hit me up!
• Technologically, I’m trying to understand what innovative & sustainably sourced materials could be used for a durable, lightweight, space efficient food container (e.g. stainless steel, silicone, bamboo) and what it takes to build IoT track & trace capabilities for collection and inventory management

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to the survey and engaged in the discussion!