August 11, 2025 • 40 mins
The scale of our plastic waste crisis is staggering: the U.S. alone uses over 100 million plastic utensils every day, most of which are used once and tossed into landfills where they'll persist for centuries. From ocean pollution to overflowing campus dumpsters after lunch rush, single-use packaging defines modern food service—but universities and businesses are under mounting pressure to embrace sustainable alternatives. Tune in to a conversation with Rob Kutner, Chief Revenue Officer at USEFULL, which offers a practical solution to food service waste: a reusable takeout container system designed for the high-volume and fast pace of college cafeterias. USEFULL's latest move challenges throwaway culture head-on with a plastic buyback program that pays institutional cafeterias to ditch disposables and go reusable.
The company has already made waves at universities like the University of Pittsburgh, Emory University, and the University of North Carolina Wilmington, achieving a remarkable 99% return rate for their containers. The economics are compelling. Rather than asking institutions to absorb the cost of switching to sustainable packaging, USEFULL creates financial incentives by purchasing a cafeteria's existing plastic inventory, removing the sunk costs barrier and providing immediate value to cafeterias ready to make the transition. USEFULL built an ecosystem to improve the convenience of reuse, developing tracking systems, POS integration services, and local washing and inventory management to solve the campus reuse challenge. The timing couldn't be better. As Bain & Company recently reported, ROI has become the driving force for growing adoption of sustainable practices. As companies recognize the threat to future business performance represented by the take-make-waste economic model, USEFULL demonstrates how simple steps, not grandiose plans for revolution, can create tractable, attractive, and profitable paths to reduced waste. You can learn more about USEFULL's reusable packaging system and their expanding campus network at https://usefull.us/
The company has already made waves at universities like the University of Pittsburgh, Emory University, and the University of North Carolina Wilmington, achieving a remarkable 99% return rate for their containers. The economics are compelling. Rather than asking institutions to absorb the cost of switching to sustainable packaging, USEFULL creates financial incentives by purchasing a cafeteria's existing plastic inventory, removing the sunk costs barrier and providing immediate value to cafeterias ready to make the transition. USEFULL built an ecosystem to improve the convenience of reuse, developing tracking systems, POS integration services, and local washing and inventory management to solve the campus reuse challenge. The timing couldn't be better. As Bain & Company recently reported, ROI has become the driving force for growing adoption of sustainable practices. As companies recognize the threat to future business performance represented by the take-make-waste economic model, USEFULL demonstrates how simple steps, not grandiose plans for revolution, can create tractable, attractive, and profitable paths to reduced waste. You can learn more about USEFULL's reusable packaging system and their expanding campus network at https://usefull.us/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in your ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Met Trackcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
Plastic waste is everywhere. It pollutes oceans, beaches and streams.
(00:32):
It packs landfills for centuries. You see only the tip
of the iceberg when you encounter dumpsters piled high with
single use packaging and tableware after a lunch rush, whether
that's at a cafeteria or your favorite quick service restaurant.
The US alone uses over one hundred million plastic utensils
every day, most of which are used just once and tossed. Now.
(00:56):
Universities and businesses are under pressure to ditch disposables and
embrace more sustainable systems, but making that transition is anything
but simple. Our guest today is Rob Kutner, chief revenue
officer at Useful. It's a company offering a radically practical alternative,
a reusable takeout container system designed for the high volume,
(01:16):
fast paced world of college campuses and corporate cafeterias. Useful's
latest move. They've introduced a plastic buyback program that pays
institutional and corporate cafeterias to give up plastic and go reusable.
It's a bold challenge to the throwaway culture that defines
modern food service. Useful's already made waves at campuses like
(01:37):
the University of Pittsburgh, Emory University, and the University of
North Carolina Wilmington, and the company is expanding into retail
dining and new container types including Asai e bowls, Boba cups,
and more to match the way students actually eat today.
We'll unpack how the useful model works, what's accelerating adoption,
why the future of takeout might just be container free.
(02:00):
Also discussed the economics of reuseful, logistics of transforming returned
containers quickly to create a circular economy and food service,
and much more so. Get ready for a conversation about
how culture change happens one takeout container at a time.
You can learn more about Useful at useful dot us.
Useful is spelled with two l's, not one, so it's
(02:20):
useful dot us. We'll get to the conversation right after
this quick commercial break welcome to the show. Rob. How
you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Very well? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Mitch, Well, Allan you thanks, I'm doing well. Thanks for
joining us. We had your CEO, Alison cob On about
a year ago and you've made a lot of progress
since then. But I want to talk about the plastic
buyback program. What's the big idea behind it and how
does it work on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Sure, So, I mean I think very basically, the big
idea is to put our money where our mount is
a little bit. And so if I kind of go
back and tell a little bit of the history of
what we've seen in reuse and then maybe where we're
going can kind of help frame how we got here.
So I would say on college campuses, and I think
(03:11):
you know, and I'm sure Allison spoke a lot about that.
We focus on college and university market. Reuse really started
to show up maybe ten twelve years ago on college
campuses as an alternative to single use packaging or plastic
for takeout, and at the time the option was really
(03:34):
I call it a tup aware like alternative. So if
you're familiar with tupperware or things that we've all used
in our home, the option was plastic reusable containers, and
it was the right idea, It was the right concept.
Things were moving in the right direction to move away
from single use packaging and the waste associated with it.
That then really accelerated come COVID time, when you know,
(03:57):
really dine in options were not possible, and so college
campuses we're trying to figure out, like, how do we
create all of these meals in takeout format for students
without going through this immense amount of single use packaging
that's expensive and wasteful and hits the landfill and all
the things that we know. And so the concept of
(04:20):
re use really started to take off even further, and
we started to see a lot of campuses start to
adopt reuse in some way, shape or form, mainly leaning
into what was available, which was this kind of reusable
plastic containers, which really just a slightly more robust single
use plastic container. And so fast forward to today, we
(04:43):
think there are better solutions from a packaging and material standpoint,
there are better solutions from a technology standpoint, and we're
trying to help campuses accelerate away from plastic for a
whole bunch of reasons that will continue to get into
plastic free alternatives like like we offer. And so one
of the biggest things I hear when I'm talking to
campuses is this is great. We love what you're doing.
(05:06):
We're sitting on thousands of plastic containers that are either
sitting in a storage room or you know, you know,
or certainly on our balance sheet from a financial standpoint,
and so you know, we launched the plastic buyback program
to try and help from an operational standpoint and from
a financial standpoint universities that wanted to make this transition
(05:30):
and we're maybe trying to figure out how best to
justify that from a financial standpoint, and so the concept
was born.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So what kind of items are you buying back?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, so typically there's a few different form factors that
we see very broadly that are kind of three compartment
or two compartment plastic reusable containers. So it's usually a
couple of different formats that we're very familiar with that
are in the market. And so what we'll do with
the campus is we will look at what a useful
(06:03):
program would look like and they'd say that makes sense,
this is great, here's these other containers that we have,
and we'd start to get into a conversation about how
many and how we can help offer a buyback to
facilitate the transition to useful.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So, once you get hold of all that plastic, what
do you do with it? Is it recycled? Are you
upcycling it? Keeping it out of how you keep it
out of the system?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, so, I mean the first attempt is to recycle
it and recycle it locally if possible. So obviously these
schools are all over the US. We're not trying to
increase a footprint by chipping them all over, So we
typically try to find local recyclers that can recycle the
material in the plastic responsibly. Unfortunately, with a lot of
(06:50):
these plastic we use programs, they defeat the purpose a
lot because they're thrown in the trash and in lands
a lot. So if we can mitigate, even in a
small way, some of that making its way to recycling
or in some cases reapurposing, there's a lot of different
companies out there doing some cool things around that as well.
That's the first attempt that we make.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
With that background, what are all those plastic utensils and
table where replaced with? Tell us about the useful packaging sure.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So for one, we're mainly we're mainly focused on food
containers and cups and mugs for coffee or soft drinks,
things like that. Useful is a fully plastic free We
focus on a stainless combination of stainless steel and food
grade silicone. Are the are what our containers are made of.
(07:42):
We say that the program works kind of like a
library book model, where a student goes to a residential
or retail dining facility on campus. If Useful is an option,
they can get their meal or their drink and a
useful container it's checked out to them. So a big
piece of the success of reuse is around accountability. So
(08:05):
this container is assigned to me personally, it's typically free
for me to use, and it's due back to a
dining facility after a couple of days, at which point
it's washed and recirculated. And the accountability piece of this
is really really effective, and that's how we achieve really
high return rates and are also creating all this great
(08:28):
data because for everything that's checked out in a useful container,
we know that's one single use piece of plastic or
packaging that has been diverted from landfill.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So you report a greater than ninety nine percent return rate,
which is really oppressive, But it sounds like to me
the blocker for an organization is integrating your tracking system
with the POS and other internal systems that they use
to track the inventory of the cafeteria. Is that the
big challenge and part of the impetus for the buyback program?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, I think it's one of them. So, you know,
we do have a fully kind of turnkey solution where
we have our own tracking, we have our own software
stack and infrastructure where if a campus wanted to do
this kind of fully independent of their other systems, they could,
and we have a dashboard and we have an app
and all the infrastructure that a campus would need to
(09:23):
have this run independently. That said, a big part of
our focus is integrating into the ecosystem you know, on
a campus and where consumers, students or faculty and staff,
you know, the systems that they're used to interfacing with.
And the reason for that is we know that reuse
is just inherently less convenient than single use, right, There's
(09:46):
no there's no major secret there that you know, if
you go and you get something in a single use container,
the simplest thing is for you to throw it away
anywhere versus having something that you're responsible for bringing back.
We know that culturally it's becoming more and more accepted
or understood that reuse and these types of things are necessary.
(10:10):
But that said, we try to bridge that convenience gap
by integrating with mobile Order ahead platforms, POS systems, CHIOS systems.
We have, you know, major partnerships with companies like Transact
and Cboard, which is a which is a large campus
ID and platform company, and they have a mobile order
(10:32):
platform and a Kiosk platform and a POS platform and
for students they get a Transact Campus ID or mobile credential,
they work in a Transact Mobile Order ahead platform. And
the more that we can integrate into those things where
I order something ahead and there's an automatic assignment where
it just shows up in a container, the more that
(10:53):
we can do things like that, the easier this is
to consume. You know, from a student standpoint, what.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I hear you're saying is that you create other forms
of convenience in order to offset the perceived inconvenience of
re use.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. It's a perfect way to
put it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
When you make this switch, how do you start to
report to the institution the impact they're having. Is it
you know, you avoided this many cups thrown away? Is
it volume metric? How do you how do you describe
that and how did they use that information for their
own purposes?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, great question. I mean it is as simple as
we use the reusable container versus a single use versus
the single use package, and so that data from a
granular level rolls up to you know, what that impact
is on you know, waste mitigation, so pounds of trash
that have been mitigated from going to the landfill, volumes,
(11:46):
you know, the volume of water that that saves, and
kind of an overall you know, carbon footprint reduction over time.
And so that is all the data that we can
aggregate and shape and a bunch of different ways that
that universities use, you know, for zero waste goals, for
plastic three goals, and some of that is stuff that
(12:08):
they you know, they work on in the background as
as part of a broader waste reduction plan, and a
lot of that is public facing. So that the other
really cool part about this is that you know there's
a million things that a university does that I'll call
you know, back of house sustainability initiatives, and then there's
kind of fewer things that people interface with every day.
(12:30):
And so one of the things here that's really cool
is that, you know, I know my part, right, I
chose a reusable container, or I went to an outlet
that uses reusable containers versus single use plastic packaging, and
that's a really nice way to kind of engage the
campus community. So the way that we kind of pull
(12:51):
all that together is we also have a very public
facing impact dashboard that we see universities put on a
TV screen or something like that when you walk into
dining to see. I call it it's kind of like
the odometer on a car, where you know, you see
the miles tick up on the number of containers that
were checked out, which is which is kind of a cool,
(13:11):
cool tank.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's a unique situation. So many sustainability efforts don't have
the ability to display the progress of the positive impact
to the consumer, and in this case, you get to
blazon the entire environment with conformation. Do you feel like
at this point that institutions are are really leaning into this?
Are we approaching a tipping point where you think that
(13:34):
the entire university system in the United States, which of
course is a very fragmented thing, is going to start
to integrate this kind of reuse practice into their daily services.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think so I talk a lot
about reuse in general as a when and how thing
for most college campuses rather than an if at this point.
So I find and most campuses very well understand the
why on reuse and the need to move towards something
(14:07):
like this, and then it's trying to prioritize the things
that are important and for some it's really understanding why
moving to a plastic free solution makes sense. For others,
it's more of a kind of crawl walk run, maybe
starting with that tupperware like solution to start because they
were on styrofoam and at which case like that is
(14:30):
a move in the right direction, and we think that eventually,
you know, they'll start to get there. But that's also
where I think that, you know, policy and legislation comes
in in some cases where we're seeing more and more
systems start by banning a single use plastic and we think, eventually,
you know, that's obviously going to move to reusable plastic
(14:53):
and then all plastic.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
From a financial perspective, hesit's net out for the university?
Did they end up saving money overall? And how do
you describe that when you're talking about the opportunity with
somebody that hasn't adopted useful Sure?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So, I mean every case is is unique in what
combination of materials they're using, what kind of you know,
how many transactions they're doing, and what that translates to.
You know, their their their buying habits. But reuse is
a cost savings over single use packaging for sure. And
so we try to model this with all of our
(15:30):
campuses and we do a pretty extensive analysis. It says,
you know, if you're doing this many transactions, you know
in a in a single use plastic, you'll save money
by transitioning to reuse. And so you know, a financial
driver plus the right thing to do is in a
lot of cases a no brainer or or really should be.
(15:53):
And so we do spend a lot of time on
that because while the sustainability impact and the thing to
do helps, the real pull through happens when you can
make a great financial case for it as well.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
All the stars have lined up, then what's stopping the
mass movement is that the culture wars in the United States.
What do we need to solve here?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, change is hard. I start there, and I feel
like I've been saying it for fifteen years now because
I've been working with kind of mission based, early stage
startups for most of my career. I started with or
not started with, but I worked with Big Belly, the
smart wayte and recycling system. Worked with that company for
almost eight years, and I answered the question the same
(16:38):
way I did thirteen years ago. Still is it. Change
is hard, and so it's getting people to understand the
why and then helping them transition to something like this
is always challenging. I think in the case of reuse specifically,
it is trying to bridge that gap between single use
convenience and what it means for reuse. And frankly, that's
(17:03):
one of the big reasons that we're starting by focusing
a lot of our time on college campuses. For one thing,
it's a nice closed community where I'm going to go
to the dining hall today, tomorrow, the next day, and
so the circularity of that makes sense based on my habits, right.
The other big piece of that is the education piece.
(17:23):
So when you're working in higher ed, you're impacting a
segment of the population that's going to work this into
their life. And then when they go to their local
coffee shop or you know, a stadium or something else
and they start to see reuse being introduced, it's not
a foreign concept, doesn't feel like an inconvenience. It just
(17:45):
kind of feels like the way things are done. And
there's like everything a time evolution.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
To that change takes time too, it does.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It does for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Great place to take a quick commercial break. We're going
to be right back. Welcome back to sustainability in your ear.
We're talking with Rob Kutner. He is chief revenue officer
at Useful. It's a leader in plastic free takeout packaging,
and Useful is offering to buy back plastic service wear
and replace it with reusable packaging and an entire program
(18:20):
that we've just been talking about. But Rob, as you
approach these institutions, what kind of trade offs do you
have to think about when you're designing the reusable container
systems for their applications. Are they concerned about particular material uses?
Are they looking for their branding on the packaging? What
drives the design.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, so Useful is unique in that we do design
and manufacture our own containers. So we have a whole
bunch off the shelfs that are purposefully designed for residential
and retail takeout applications. So the biggest thing is like
the vessel itself, So what are we serving? Is it
(19:02):
a burger and frize? Is it a is it a
burrito bowl? You know those things when you're dealing in
single use can be very easily kind of curated for
those and and get a little more complicated on the
reuse side because you're you're you're you know, there's tooling
and your mass mass manufacturing something, so, uh, it's a
(19:23):
little bit of a form factor from that standpoint. On
the university side, if there's university concepts, we can do
branding on lids and things like that, which are mainly
centered around kind of school colors and less so around
the actual the actual outlet brand. When we start to
talk about national brands, it's an entirely different conversation. Obviously,
(19:46):
if you're starting to introduce reuse to to national retail brands,
you know, branding is important, and you know, every single
use container that leaves there is a little piece of
marketing for that outlet, and so it's something that we
spend some time talking about. I would say we start
with university brands because they're a little easier to adopt
(20:09):
from that standpoint, But we are seeing more and more,
you know, national brands starting to consider reuse in a
real way, and we think that that's going to be
very partnership driven in how we do it. It goes
back into the financial piece of this and how you
can make a cost savings case versus single use as well.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The other design issue is the process that the institution
is going to have to undertake in order to use
the reusables. Do you have to think about what happens
after I return a package in the first place?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, no, great question. So I guess the other reason
we talked about why Useful is so focused on college
and universities is in most cases, the operational infrastructure exists, right,
So when you bring back a reusable container, it's collected
by dining and washed through. Typically what exists today is
(21:05):
dishrooms and industrial sized dishwashers, and that operation that exists washed,
you know, put back on the shelf and redistributed. So
in the best case scenario that operation exists, right because
it's going to be the lowest impact from an operational
lifts from a cost standpoint. But that said, a lot
(21:27):
of retail operations never considered reuse, and so you do
need to think about do we have the dish washing capacity?
That's number one. So I guess to directly answer your question,
dish washing capacity is always number one because when you
take something that was considered to just go to waste
stream and now it's going to come back need to
(21:50):
be washed and redistributed, that's a very different operational thought
process for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So based on your experience to date, what makes a
university or a corporate camp it's a good fit for
the useful solution? When you walk in, how do you
look around you think this is a fit? What are
you looking for?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, I mean great question. I mean for starters, we
just start with how we think we can make the
biggest impact, right, So we look at, you know, what
kind of volume is happening, and a lot of times
if there's a significant amount of volume and there's a
will to try to do something, then there's a way, right,
(22:28):
And so we can back into either making the case
for an investment in an industrial dishwasher that didn't exist before,
because a twenty thousand dollars dishwasher is a drop in
the bucket if you're saving that a month. So a
lot of times there can be an upfront cost ROI
to just upgrading that operation. But you kind of start
(22:50):
with what the volume looks like and the desire to
make a change, and then of course then we get
into space what the flow looks like at point of sale.
So I walk in, is it something that the staff
builds for me? Do I build it myself? Is it prepackaged?
You know, there's a whole bunch of things that go
into how we consider what that workflow looks like. But
(23:13):
at this point we're at the maturity where we've seen
a little bit of everything and you probably can't surprise
us if we take a walk through a kitchen or
through a dishroom and and you know, try to make
it work.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You mentioned earlier we were talking about why people do
this as the students, for instance, and you mentioned responsibility,
But responsibility doesn't necessarily carry all of the way that
needs to. Moral suasion has a lot to do with this.
How do you get the students themselves to begin to
evangelize the reuse program. Do you give them any kind
of materials they can use to say I'm part of
(23:46):
the solution and not the problem.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So we talked a
lot about the reporting at an institution level that we do.
We also drive that down to an individual basis as well.
So I can go as a just as a utiable employee,
but as a user when I'm on these campuses, I
can go and see what my individual impact is, right,
how many containers I've you know, mitigated from landfill? What
(24:10):
that's translated, like I said, to carbon footprint and volume
of water use and all that good stuff. So, you know,
you could call it gamification a little bit, but I
hesitate to call it that versus just really understanding what
my impact and piece of this is and kind of
again front of house initiative. So that's a big part
(24:31):
of it. And I also just think it comes down
to some of those you know, cultural and behavioral barriers
that we start to break down, it becomes generational and
we spend a lot of time with campuses on educating
the community on the why right, And so before a
launch we're doing three or four weeks of outreach to
(24:52):
the students on your university is now a useful university
and here's why, and here's what you can do, and
here's how you can make the largest impact. And so
you have to start somewhere. But then eventually first years
show up and that's their expectation, right, And all of
a sudden, you have your entire population that came to
(25:12):
the school and understands that it does reuse versus single
use and hopefully plastic three reuse.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Be really interesting to see your reporting integrated into a
larger service. That said, your overall, your entire lifespan impact
is being changed by this kind of activity, and I
imagine that's something that will be possible, particularly with AI,
to process all that information in the future. But that
understanding that trade off and creating a lifelong habit of
(25:40):
reuse is so critical to where we need to go.
Do you go there when you do that kind of
messaging that this is part of changing not just your impact,
but the entire world's impact.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean, you know, we try to make things,
and obviously we're a company that's trying to grow as well,
and you know, we need to you know, you know,
we need to do that to make that impact. So
we try to make it actionable. And sometimes if you
paint the picture too large, it's like, you know, how
do you eat an elephant right? One, one bite at
a time, as annoyingly cliche as it is. So I
(26:16):
think sometimes in going back to your question on the challenge,
sometimes it can feel like a big thing, right, and
so we try to make it smaller. And then once
we get there as a this is not a this
is not a significant lift, we can get there conceptually,
then it's how do we how do we make this
a more macro piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Another facet of that expansion of reuse even within a
campus is integrating with the retail restaurants that are on campus,
and that's increasingly happening both on universities and corporate campuses.
Can they require those retail operations on their property to
use useful.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Sure? I mean for university concepts. So there's typically on
a college campus, there's university concepts and then there's national
branded retail concepts. Most schools start with retail university concepts
because they can do exactly what you just said with
pretty much unilateral decision making. So they start there and
(27:19):
that's usually a really good place to start. Make a
significant impact. Get the university introduced to this from a
concept standpoint, and then it's a broader conversation with the
national brands. But I have seen the level of you know,
receptiveness rise and so it becomes a here's what we'd
like to do, and how do we collectively make that happen.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Is that also your foothold to begin to enter the
broader retail and particularly quick service restaurant industry in the future,
And how do you get there If that's not something
currently on your plan.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
No, it absolutely is, and so it's a you know,
it's a very tactical decision into focus in colleges and universities,
get that that foothold, maybe get that foothold with national
brand a on a campus and then start to you know,
elevate that conversation to other areas that this can that
this can expand into. You know, when you look at reuse,
(28:17):
you kind of look at either closed community or open community,
and so closed community obviously college and universities, but you
can also look at corporate campuses. You can look at
certain healthcare systems, so there's a lot that we can
do in there that we will continue to grow into.
And then you start to look at okay, well, then
how does that look in open community? And that's where
(28:39):
you know, I like to talk about it as kind
of public private private partnership. And so it's it's private
in that it's the retailers in this open community need
to be bought in. It's public in that that that town,
that county, that state needs to be bought in in
some way, shape or form to how this operationally looks.
(29:00):
And then the other private being you know, a company
like useful that has expertise and you know how a
reusable program can work best.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And in these early conversations with retail brands, what do
you find is motivating their curiosity? Is it that they're
is it the saving money? Is it to attract more
customers based on the fact that they're working to reduce
the impact on the planet. Is it meeting their sustainability goals?
What gets the conversation past the oh, reuse tell me
(29:30):
about it question?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean the almighty dollar as a
starting point helps for sure. I mean, that's the priority.
Number one is to you know, to sell whatever they're
selling in as much as possible, and so and at
as high a margin as possible, and so in most cases,
the case for moving to reuse from a financial standpoint
(29:53):
can be really really good. You know, we can save
as much as fifty percent over some of the single
use tack that some of these retailers are using. So
that's certainly number one. But increasingly there are sustainability goals
that they're getting more and more serious about. You know,
we see greenwashing attempts that are it just doesn't really
(30:14):
fly anymore. And so I think the level of seriousness
on trying to achieve something versus checking a box has
changed and has started to shift.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
The difference in the two scenarios we're talking about university
and retail is the cadence with which people visit those locations.
Is that have you thought about how to use, for instance,
loyalty program tie ins to the tracking of the materials
that you're dispensing to get people to you know, let's
say hypothetically come back to Chipotle with their ball and
(30:45):
have it refilled.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a there's an even
there's a very basic way to start where I think
if you ask, most people that do any sort of commuting,
they go to the same coffee shop in the morning everywhere, right,
you know, they go, they use their order a head app,
they pick it up, and off they go. Take the
I take the train into Boston into our office. I
see the same ten people in line every morning. And
(31:09):
so it's not a big jump for there to be
a reuse program there for people that are going to
the same place. And sure that's open community, but it's
kind of closed behavioral from that standpoint. And so I
think there's low hanging fruit there where. If you can
do that, and I think that there are companies that
(31:30):
are trying or you know, dipping their toe in the
water to get there, then that can expand.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It goes back to crafting an end to end experience
and reinforcing the value over and over as you first
become initiated to it, but then really buy into it
and see the benefits. Do you help consumers lobby organizations
to undertake reuse practices and how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
If you do, Yeah, it's not something we spend a
lot of time on today. You know, we do talk
speak to you know, a bunch of you know, nonprofit
and lobbyist groups that are mainly focused on reducing plastic
from the waste stream. That's obviously a big piece of
what we do, so we do some of that. There
(32:20):
are a bunch of companies in the ecosystem that we
we speak with quite regularly that are trying to do
community based reuse programs, and we try to help where possible.
But I think the very basic strategy, at least for me,
is looking after you know, sales and marketing and partnerships,
is to you know, to win one university at a time,
(32:42):
and that is a big segment of a population that
we can influence and then send out into the world
to say, why is there not a reuse program here
at the coffee shop? Okay, there's a there's a bring
my own mug program, Sure that's pretty widely adopted at
this point. But what if I don't have my own
I don't want to use the plastic cup, or I
don't want to use the single use cup. I kind
(33:04):
of keep going back to earn, earn the right to
have the next conversation type of thing.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Again, great experience is the key to unlocking that relationship
and really building and maintaining it useful. Got a lot
on its plate, and that's a reusable plate. What's next
where you headed.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
For now? We're busy on college campuses. There's a lot
of them, and there's plenty that we're not on yet,
So we're spending a lot of time there. We're spending
a lot of time on the ecosystem partnerships. So, like
I said, the way to make reuse you know, really
grow at scale is to make it easy and end
to end, and so we're spending a lot of time
(33:47):
on that. And then I think the natural progressions, you know,
like we've talked about a bunch are starting to be
in some of the other closed communities, starting to trickle
its influence in to open community settings. So I think
that's the kind of general roadmap at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So how can folks follow the story? And if they
wanted to find a cafeteria to see it for themselves,
where would they go?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, so for one thing, you know, follow us on
I think I think my team's most active on LinkedIn
with all of our success stories, and I've got a
phenomenal marketing team that does a does a ton of
content on things to think about you know why we
try to educate as much as anything, not just not
just be salesy and you know, explain what microwave safe
(34:36):
really means and explain you know why microplastics you know,
making their way you know, into your body should be
a major concern right now. So we spend a lot
of time on that. And so you know LinkedIn or
or our socials are a good place to start. But
we also if you're ever on a college campus, you know,
it's not exclusive to students, So you can download the
(34:57):
Useful app. You can go get something checked out to you,
use the app to find a return station, use the
app to find an outlet that's using Useful. There are
ways to interface with what we're doing or other reuse
companies because there's a lot of activity in this space
at this point.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Well, Rob, thanks very much for sharing the story.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yes, my pleasure. I appreciate I know we've been on
a couple of times now, so appreciate you highlighting useful
and very much appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Well, come on back and tell us about the progress
as it continues. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I'd love to Thanks Mitch, welcome.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Back to Sustainability in your ear and you've been listening
to my conversation with Rob Kuttner. He is chief revenue
officer at the reusable food service, packaging and technology platform
company Useful. It's being adopted by university campuses and can't
support the next generation's desire to reduce its environmental impact
at cafeterias and retail outlets. So take some time to
(35:59):
learn about the system and Useful team and history at
useful dot us. Useful is spelled with two l's, two l's,
not one useful dot us. Reuse is a necessary practice
if we're going to bring society back within the planet's
carrying capacity for life, for human life, and for life
across the planet. In twenty twenty five, humans exhausted nature's
(36:22):
carrying capacity on July twenty fourth, or Earth Overshoot Day.
We can push that date out till later end of
the year by avoiding the use of single use landfill
bound packaging. But reuse is just one of many steps
that we need to take, and Rob's frank acknowledgment that
reuse is inherently less convenient than using something once and
(36:42):
tossing it in the trash is important to note the
benefits of that extra effort are tangible. We have to
surface that for people, help them understand that the energy
we expend bringing food service items back for washing and
reuse outweighs the energy expanded and emissions associated with that
of plastic food package. It's a matter then of making
reuses convenient as possible, but telling that story and finding
(37:05):
the right incentives to encourage people to participate. In bottle
deposit Bill states return rates are substantially higher, sometimes over
sixty five seventy percent for pet bottles. We need to
think about the same kind of incentive system across the economy,
not built in as regulatory charges, but built into the
business of making these systems available at an affordable and
(37:29):
economic price. College students will be able to set the
course for their generation by taking those extra steps necessary
to keep materials in circulation that the universities were useful
as being used today. It's focused on the convenience gap,
as rob explained, and many industries can learn from useful
as we increase our reliance on reusables, so check it out.
(37:51):
The key, of course is to develop an ecosystem and
useful as reusable packaging would not be viable without the
tracking systems, the integration services, the local local washing and
inventory management capacity that it brings to solving a campus's
reuse challenge. Rob reiterated what we've heard over and over
that the effort must produce positive results at the bottom line. Roi,
(38:15):
as Bane and Company reported recently has become the driving
force for growing adoption of sustainable practices. Now note that
I said sustainability efforts are growing. They're not shrinking in
the face of the current assault on the practice by
the federal government because companies now recognized that the threat
to future business performance represented by the take make waste
(38:37):
economic model that exploded onto the scene in the late
twentieth century is a path to destruction, to financial destruction.
So starting with simple steps, not grandiose and unrealistic promises
of revolution and process, can make the path tractable, attractive,
and manageable for companies in any industry. And those are
(38:57):
the first steps that always require finding partners, standing up
new supply chains, new logistic capabilities, and so forth. By
developing a financially sustainable business model through experimentation, that is
the way that we blaze the trail to reduce waste,
reduced extraction of natural resources and improved customer satisfaction while
(39:19):
turning an increased profit. So we're going to keep an
eye on useful and of course we're going to explore
other reuse strategies. Stay tuned, folks, and I hope you'll
take a moment to check out the more than five
hundred episodes of Sustainability in your Ear that we produce today.
Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help
your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers that can
(39:40):
spread more ideas to create less waste. So please tell
your friends, family, and coworkers that they can find Sustainability
in your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible or
whatever purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you
for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is Sustainability in your
Ear and we will be back with another innovator interviews soon.
(40:02):
In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care
of one another, and let's all take care of this
beautiful planet of ours.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Have a green deck,
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in your ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Met Trackcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
Plastic waste is everywhere. It pollutes oceans, beaches and streams.
(00:32):
It packs landfills for centuries. You see only the tip
of the iceberg when you encounter dumpsters piled high with
single use packaging and tableware after a lunch rush, whether
that's at a cafeteria or your favorite quick service restaurant.
The US alone uses over one hundred million plastic utensils
every day, most of which are used just once and tossed. Now.
(00:56):
Universities and businesses are under pressure to ditch disposables and
embrace more sustainable systems, but making that transition is anything
but simple. Our guest today is Rob Kutner, chief revenue
officer at Useful. It's a company offering a radically practical alternative,
a reusable takeout container system designed for the high volume,
(01:16):
fast paced world of college campuses and corporate cafeterias. Useful's
latest move. They've introduced a plastic buyback program that pays
institutional and corporate cafeterias to give up plastic and go reusable.
It's a bold challenge to the throwaway culture that defines
modern food service. Useful's already made waves at campuses like
(01:37):
the University of Pittsburgh, Emory University, and the University of
North Carolina Wilmington, and the company is expanding into retail
dining and new container types including Asai e bowls, Boba cups,
and more to match the way students actually eat today.
We'll unpack how the useful model works, what's accelerating adoption,
why the future of takeout might just be container free.
(02:00):
Also discussed the economics of reuseful, logistics of transforming returned
containers quickly to create a circular economy and food service,
and much more so. Get ready for a conversation about
how culture change happens one takeout container at a time.
You can learn more about Useful at useful dot us.
Useful is spelled with two l's, not one, so it's
(02:20):
useful dot us. We'll get to the conversation right after
this quick commercial break welcome to the show. Rob. How
you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Very well? Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Mitch, Well, Allan you thanks, I'm doing well. Thanks for
joining us. We had your CEO, Alison cob On about
a year ago and you've made a lot of progress
since then. But I want to talk about the plastic
buyback program. What's the big idea behind it and how
does it work on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Sure, So, I mean I think very basically, the big
idea is to put our money where our mount is
a little bit. And so if I kind of go
back and tell a little bit of the history of
what we've seen in reuse and then maybe where we're
going can kind of help frame how we got here.
So I would say on college campuses, and I think
(03:11):
you know, and I'm sure Allison spoke a lot about that.
We focus on college and university market. Reuse really started
to show up maybe ten twelve years ago on college
campuses as an alternative to single use packaging or plastic
for takeout, and at the time the option was really
(03:34):
I call it a tup aware like alternative. So if
you're familiar with tupperware or things that we've all used
in our home, the option was plastic reusable containers, and
it was the right idea, It was the right concept.
Things were moving in the right direction to move away
from single use packaging and the waste associated with it.
That then really accelerated come COVID time, when you know,
(03:57):
really dine in options were not possible, and so college
campuses we're trying to figure out, like, how do we
create all of these meals in takeout format for students
without going through this immense amount of single use packaging
that's expensive and wasteful and hits the landfill and all
the things that we know. And so the concept of
(04:20):
re use really started to take off even further, and
we started to see a lot of campuses start to
adopt reuse in some way, shape or form, mainly leaning
into what was available, which was this kind of reusable
plastic containers, which really just a slightly more robust single
use plastic container. And so fast forward to today, we
(04:43):
think there are better solutions from a packaging and material standpoint,
there are better solutions from a technology standpoint, and we're
trying to help campuses accelerate away from plastic for a
whole bunch of reasons that will continue to get into
plastic free alternatives like like we offer. And so one
of the biggest things I hear when I'm talking to
campuses is this is great. We love what you're doing.
(05:06):
We're sitting on thousands of plastic containers that are either
sitting in a storage room or you know, you know,
or certainly on our balance sheet from a financial standpoint,
and so you know, we launched the plastic buyback program
to try and help from an operational standpoint and from
a financial standpoint universities that wanted to make this transition
(05:30):
and we're maybe trying to figure out how best to
justify that from a financial standpoint, and so the concept
was born.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So what kind of items are you buying back?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, so typically there's a few different form factors that
we see very broadly that are kind of three compartment
or two compartment plastic reusable containers. So it's usually a
couple of different formats that we're very familiar with that
are in the market. And so what we'll do with
the campus is we will look at what a useful
(06:03):
program would look like and they'd say that makes sense,
this is great, here's these other containers that we have,
and we'd start to get into a conversation about how
many and how we can help offer a buyback to
facilitate the transition to useful.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
So, once you get hold of all that plastic, what
do you do with it? Is it recycled? Are you
upcycling it? Keeping it out of how you keep it
out of the system?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, so, I mean the first attempt is to recycle
it and recycle it locally if possible. So obviously these
schools are all over the US. We're not trying to
increase a footprint by chipping them all over, So we
typically try to find local recyclers that can recycle the
material in the plastic responsibly. Unfortunately, with a lot of
(06:50):
these plastic we use programs, they defeat the purpose a
lot because they're thrown in the trash and in lands
a lot. So if we can mitigate, even in a
small way, some of that making its way to recycling
or in some cases reapurposing, there's a lot of different
companies out there doing some cool things around that as well.
That's the first attempt that we make.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
With that background, what are all those plastic utensils and
table where replaced with? Tell us about the useful packaging sure.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So for one, we're mainly we're mainly focused on food
containers and cups and mugs for coffee or soft drinks,
things like that. Useful is a fully plastic free We
focus on a stainless combination of stainless steel and food
grade silicone. Are the are what our containers are made of.
(07:42):
We say that the program works kind of like a
library book model, where a student goes to a residential
or retail dining facility on campus. If Useful is an option,
they can get their meal or their drink and a
useful container it's checked out to them. So a big
piece of the success of reuse is around accountability. So
(08:05):
this container is assigned to me personally, it's typically free
for me to use, and it's due back to a
dining facility after a couple of days, at which point
it's washed and recirculated. And the accountability piece of this
is really really effective, and that's how we achieve really
high return rates and are also creating all this great
(08:28):
data because for everything that's checked out in a useful container,
we know that's one single use piece of plastic or
packaging that has been diverted from landfill.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
So you report a greater than ninety nine percent return rate,
which is really oppressive, But it sounds like to me
the blocker for an organization is integrating your tracking system
with the POS and other internal systems that they use
to track the inventory of the cafeteria. Is that the
big challenge and part of the impetus for the buyback program?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah, I think it's one of them. So, you know,
we do have a fully kind of turnkey solution where
we have our own tracking, we have our own software
stack and infrastructure where if a campus wanted to do
this kind of fully independent of their other systems, they could,
and we have a dashboard and we have an app
and all the infrastructure that a campus would need to
(09:23):
have this run independently. That said, a big part of
our focus is integrating into the ecosystem you know, on
a campus and where consumers, students or faculty and staff,
you know, the systems that they're used to interfacing with.
And the reason for that is we know that reuse
is just inherently less convenient than single use, right, There's
(09:46):
no there's no major secret there that you know, if
you go and you get something in a single use container,
the simplest thing is for you to throw it away
anywhere versus having something that you're responsible for bringing back.
We know that culturally it's becoming more and more accepted
or understood that reuse and these types of things are necessary.
(10:10):
But that said, we try to bridge that convenience gap
by integrating with mobile Order ahead platforms, POS systems, CHIOS systems.
We have, you know, major partnerships with companies like Transact
and Cboard, which is a which is a large campus
ID and platform company, and they have a mobile order
(10:32):
platform and a Kiosk platform and a POS platform and
for students they get a Transact Campus ID or mobile credential,
they work in a Transact Mobile Order ahead platform. And
the more that we can integrate into those things where
I order something ahead and there's an automatic assignment where
it just shows up in a container, the more that
(10:53):
we can do things like that, the easier this is
to consume. You know, from a student standpoint, what.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I hear you're saying is that you create other forms
of convenience in order to offset the perceived inconvenience of
re use.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, that's right, that's right. It's a perfect way to
put it.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
When you make this switch, how do you start to
report to the institution the impact they're having. Is it
you know, you avoided this many cups thrown away? Is
it volume metric? How do you how do you describe
that and how did they use that information for their
own purposes?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Yeah, great question. I mean it is as simple as
we use the reusable container versus a single use versus
the single use package, and so that data from a
granular level rolls up to you know, what that impact
is on you know, waste mitigation, so pounds of trash
that have been mitigated from going to the landfill, volumes,
(11:46):
you know, the volume of water that that saves, and
kind of an overall you know, carbon footprint reduction over time.
And so that is all the data that we can
aggregate and shape and a bunch of different ways that
that universities use, you know, for zero waste goals, for
plastic three goals, and some of that is stuff that
(12:08):
they you know, they work on in the background as
as part of a broader waste reduction plan, and a
lot of that is public facing. So that the other
really cool part about this is that you know there's
a million things that a university does that I'll call
you know, back of house sustainability initiatives, and then there's
kind of fewer things that people interface with every day.
(12:30):
And so one of the things here that's really cool
is that, you know, I know my part, right, I
chose a reusable container, or I went to an outlet
that uses reusable containers versus single use plastic packaging, and
that's a really nice way to kind of engage the
campus community. So the way that we kind of pull
(12:51):
all that together is we also have a very public
facing impact dashboard that we see universities put on a
TV screen or something like that when you walk into
dining to see. I call it it's kind of like
the odometer on a car, where you know, you see
the miles tick up on the number of containers that
were checked out, which is which is kind of a cool,
(13:11):
cool tank.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's a unique situation. So many sustainability efforts don't have
the ability to display the progress of the positive impact
to the consumer, and in this case, you get to
blazon the entire environment with conformation. Do you feel like
at this point that institutions are are really leaning into this?
Are we approaching a tipping point where you think that
(13:34):
the entire university system in the United States, which of
course is a very fragmented thing, is going to start
to integrate this kind of reuse practice into their daily services.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think so I talk a lot
about reuse in general as a when and how thing
for most college campuses rather than an if at this point.
So I find and most campuses very well understand the
why on reuse and the need to move towards something
(14:07):
like this, and then it's trying to prioritize the things
that are important and for some it's really understanding why
moving to a plastic free solution makes sense. For others,
it's more of a kind of crawl walk run, maybe
starting with that tupperware like solution to start because they
were on styrofoam and at which case like that is
(14:30):
a move in the right direction, and we think that eventually,
you know, they'll start to get there. But that's also
where I think that, you know, policy and legislation comes
in in some cases where we're seeing more and more
systems start by banning a single use plastic and we think, eventually,
you know, that's obviously going to move to reusable plastic
(14:53):
and then all plastic.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
From a financial perspective, hesit's net out for the university?
Did they end up saving money overall? And how do
you describe that when you're talking about the opportunity with
somebody that hasn't adopted useful Sure?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So, I mean every case is is unique in what
combination of materials they're using, what kind of you know,
how many transactions they're doing, and what that translates to.
You know, their their their buying habits. But reuse is
a cost savings over single use packaging for sure. And
so we try to model this with all of our
(15:30):
campuses and we do a pretty extensive analysis. It says,
you know, if you're doing this many transactions, you know
in a in a single use plastic, you'll save money
by transitioning to reuse. And so you know, a financial
driver plus the right thing to do is in a
lot of cases a no brainer or or really should be.
(15:53):
And so we do spend a lot of time on
that because while the sustainability impact and the thing to
do helps, the real pull through happens when you can
make a great financial case for it as well.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
All the stars have lined up, then what's stopping the
mass movement is that the culture wars in the United States.
What do we need to solve here?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, change is hard. I start there, and I feel
like I've been saying it for fifteen years now because
I've been working with kind of mission based, early stage
startups for most of my career. I started with or
not started with, but I worked with Big Belly, the
smart wayte and recycling system. Worked with that company for
almost eight years, and I answered the question the same
(16:38):
way I did thirteen years ago. Still is it. Change
is hard, and so it's getting people to understand the
why and then helping them transition to something like this
is always challenging. I think in the case of reuse specifically,
it is trying to bridge that gap between single use
convenience and what it means for reuse. And frankly, that's
(17:03):
one of the big reasons that we're starting by focusing
a lot of our time on college campuses. For one thing,
it's a nice closed community where I'm going to go
to the dining hall today, tomorrow, the next day, and
so the circularity of that makes sense based on my habits, right.
The other big piece of that is the education piece.
(17:23):
So when you're working in higher ed, you're impacting a
segment of the population that's going to work this into
their life. And then when they go to their local
coffee shop or you know, a stadium or something else
and they start to see reuse being introduced, it's not
a foreign concept, doesn't feel like an inconvenience. It just
(17:45):
kind of feels like the way things are done. And
there's like everything a time evolution.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
To that change takes time too, it does.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It does for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Great place to take a quick commercial break. We're going
to be right back. Welcome back to sustainability in your ear.
We're talking with Rob Kutner. He is chief revenue officer
at Useful. It's a leader in plastic free takeout packaging,
and Useful is offering to buy back plastic service wear
and replace it with reusable packaging and an entire program
(18:20):
that we've just been talking about. But Rob, as you
approach these institutions, what kind of trade offs do you
have to think about when you're designing the reusable container
systems for their applications. Are they concerned about particular material uses?
Are they looking for their branding on the packaging? What
drives the design.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yeah, so Useful is unique in that we do design
and manufacture our own containers. So we have a whole
bunch off the shelfs that are purposefully designed for residential
and retail takeout applications. So the biggest thing is like
the vessel itself, So what are we serving? Is it
(19:02):
a burger and frize? Is it a is it a
burrito bowl? You know those things when you're dealing in
single use can be very easily kind of curated for
those and and get a little more complicated on the
reuse side because you're you're you're you know, there's tooling
and your mass mass manufacturing something, so, uh, it's a
(19:23):
little bit of a form factor from that standpoint. On
the university side, if there's university concepts, we can do
branding on lids and things like that, which are mainly
centered around kind of school colors and less so around
the actual the actual outlet brand. When we start to
talk about national brands, it's an entirely different conversation. Obviously,
(19:46):
if you're starting to introduce reuse to to national retail brands,
you know, branding is important, and you know, every single
use container that leaves there is a little piece of
marketing for that outlet, and so it's something that we
spend some time talking about. I would say we start
with university brands because they're a little easier to adopt
(20:09):
from that standpoint, But we are seeing more and more,
you know, national brands starting to consider reuse in a
real way, and we think that that's going to be
very partnership driven in how we do it. It goes
back into the financial piece of this and how you
can make a cost savings case versus single use as well.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
The other design issue is the process that the institution
is going to have to undertake in order to use
the reusables. Do you have to think about what happens
after I return a package in the first place?
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, no, great question. So I guess the other reason
we talked about why Useful is so focused on college
and universities is in most cases, the operational infrastructure exists, right,
So when you bring back a reusable container, it's collected
by dining and washed through. Typically what exists today is
(21:05):
dishrooms and industrial sized dishwashers, and that operation that exists washed,
you know, put back on the shelf and redistributed. So
in the best case scenario that operation exists, right because
it's going to be the lowest impact from an operational
lifts from a cost standpoint. But that said, a lot
(21:27):
of retail operations never considered reuse, and so you do
need to think about do we have the dish washing capacity?
That's number one. So I guess to directly answer your question,
dish washing capacity is always number one because when you
take something that was considered to just go to waste
stream and now it's going to come back need to
(21:50):
be washed and redistributed, that's a very different operational thought
process for sure.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So based on your experience to date, what makes a
university or a corporate camp it's a good fit for
the useful solution? When you walk in, how do you
look around you think this is a fit? What are
you looking for?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, I mean great question. I mean for starters, we
just start with how we think we can make the
biggest impact, right, So we look at, you know, what
kind of volume is happening, and a lot of times
if there's a significant amount of volume and there's a
will to try to do something, then there's a way, right,
(22:28):
And so we can back into either making the case
for an investment in an industrial dishwasher that didn't exist before,
because a twenty thousand dollars dishwasher is a drop in
the bucket if you're saving that a month. So a
lot of times there can be an upfront cost ROI
to just upgrading that operation. But you kind of start
(22:50):
with what the volume looks like and the desire to
make a change, and then of course then we get
into space what the flow looks like at point of sale.
So I walk in, is it something that the staff
builds for me? Do I build it myself? Is it prepackaged?
You know, there's a whole bunch of things that go
into how we consider what that workflow looks like. But
(23:13):
at this point we're at the maturity where we've seen
a little bit of everything and you probably can't surprise
us if we take a walk through a kitchen or
through a dishroom and and you know, try to make
it work.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
You mentioned earlier we were talking about why people do
this as the students, for instance, and you mentioned responsibility,
But responsibility doesn't necessarily carry all of the way that
needs to. Moral suasion has a lot to do with this.
How do you get the students themselves to begin to
evangelize the reuse program. Do you give them any kind
of materials they can use to say I'm part of
(23:46):
the solution and not the problem.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, no, that's a great question. So we talked a
lot about the reporting at an institution level that we do.
We also drive that down to an individual basis as well.
So I can go as a just as a utiable employee,
but as a user when I'm on these campuses, I
can go and see what my individual impact is, right,
how many containers I've you know, mitigated from landfill? What
(24:10):
that's translated, like I said, to carbon footprint and volume
of water use and all that good stuff. So, you know,
you could call it gamification a little bit, but I
hesitate to call it that versus just really understanding what
my impact and piece of this is and kind of
again front of house initiative. So that's a big part
(24:31):
of it. And I also just think it comes down
to some of those you know, cultural and behavioral barriers
that we start to break down, it becomes generational and
we spend a lot of time with campuses on educating
the community on the why right, And so before a
launch we're doing three or four weeks of outreach to
(24:52):
the students on your university is now a useful university
and here's why, and here's what you can do, and
here's how you can make the largest impact. And so
you have to start somewhere. But then eventually first years
show up and that's their expectation, right, And all of
a sudden, you have your entire population that came to
(25:12):
the school and understands that it does reuse versus single
use and hopefully plastic three reuse.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Be really interesting to see your reporting integrated into a
larger service. That said, your overall, your entire lifespan impact
is being changed by this kind of activity, and I
imagine that's something that will be possible, particularly with AI,
to process all that information in the future. But that
understanding that trade off and creating a lifelong habit of
(25:40):
reuse is so critical to where we need to go.
Do you go there when you do that kind of
messaging that this is part of changing not just your impact,
but the entire world's impact.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah, I mean, you know, we try to make things,
and obviously we're a company that's trying to grow as well,
and you know, we need to you know, you know,
we need to do that to make that impact. So
we try to make it actionable. And sometimes if you
paint the picture too large, it's like, you know, how
do you eat an elephant right? One, one bite at
a time, as annoyingly cliche as it is. So I
(26:16):
think sometimes in going back to your question on the challenge,
sometimes it can feel like a big thing, right, and
so we try to make it smaller. And then once
we get there as a this is not a this
is not a significant lift, we can get there conceptually,
then it's how do we how do we make this
a more macro piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Another facet of that expansion of reuse even within a
campus is integrating with the retail restaurants that are on campus,
and that's increasingly happening both on universities and corporate campuses.
Can they require those retail operations on their property to
use useful.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Sure? I mean for university concepts. So there's typically on
a college campus, there's university concepts and then there's national
branded retail concepts. Most schools start with retail university concepts
because they can do exactly what you just said with
pretty much unilateral decision making. So they start there and
(27:19):
that's usually a really good place to start. Make a
significant impact. Get the university introduced to this from a
concept standpoint, and then it's a broader conversation with the
national brands. But I have seen the level of you know,
receptiveness rise and so it becomes a here's what we'd
like to do, and how do we collectively make that happen.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Is that also your foothold to begin to enter the
broader retail and particularly quick service restaurant industry in the future,
And how do you get there If that's not something
currently on your plan.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
No, it absolutely is, and so it's a you know,
it's a very tactical decision into focus in colleges and universities,
get that that foothold, maybe get that foothold with national
brand a on a campus and then start to you know,
elevate that conversation to other areas that this can that
this can expand into. You know, when you look at reuse,
(28:17):
you kind of look at either closed community or open community,
and so closed community obviously college and universities, but you
can also look at corporate campuses. You can look at
certain healthcare systems, so there's a lot that we can
do in there that we will continue to grow into.
And then you start to look at okay, well, then
how does that look in open community? And that's where
(28:39):
you know, I like to talk about it as kind
of public private private partnership. And so it's it's private
in that it's the retailers in this open community need
to be bought in. It's public in that that that town,
that county, that state needs to be bought in in
some way, shape or form to how this operationally looks.
(29:00):
And then the other private being you know, a company
like useful that has expertise and you know how a
reusable program can work best.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
And in these early conversations with retail brands, what do
you find is motivating their curiosity? Is it that they're
is it the saving money? Is it to attract more
customers based on the fact that they're working to reduce
the impact on the planet. Is it meeting their sustainability goals?
What gets the conversation past the oh, reuse tell me
(29:30):
about it question?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean the almighty dollar as a
starting point helps for sure. I mean, that's the priority.
Number one is to you know, to sell whatever they're
selling in as much as possible, and so and at
as high a margin as possible, and so in most cases,
the case for moving to reuse from a financial standpoint
(29:53):
can be really really good. You know, we can save
as much as fifty percent over some of the single
use tack that some of these retailers are using. So
that's certainly number one. But increasingly there are sustainability goals
that they're getting more and more serious about. You know,
we see greenwashing attempts that are it just doesn't really
(30:14):
fly anymore. And so I think the level of seriousness
on trying to achieve something versus checking a box has
changed and has started to shift.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
The difference in the two scenarios we're talking about university
and retail is the cadence with which people visit those locations.
Is that have you thought about how to use, for instance,
loyalty program tie ins to the tracking of the materials
that you're dispensing to get people to you know, let's
say hypothetically come back to Chipotle with their ball and
(30:45):
have it refilled.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a there's an even
there's a very basic way to start where I think
if you ask, most people that do any sort of commuting,
they go to the same coffee shop in the morning everywhere, right,
you know, they go, they use their order a head app,
they pick it up, and off they go. Take the
I take the train into Boston into our office. I
see the same ten people in line every morning. And
(31:09):
so it's not a big jump for there to be
a reuse program there for people that are going to
the same place. And sure that's open community, but it's
kind of closed behavioral from that standpoint. And so I
think there's low hanging fruit there where. If you can
do that, and I think that there are companies that
(31:30):
are trying or you know, dipping their toe in the
water to get there, then that can expand.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
It goes back to crafting an end to end experience
and reinforcing the value over and over as you first
become initiated to it, but then really buy into it
and see the benefits. Do you help consumers lobby organizations
to undertake reuse practices and how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
If you do, Yeah, it's not something we spend a
lot of time on today. You know, we do talk
speak to you know, a bunch of you know, nonprofit
and lobbyist groups that are mainly focused on reducing plastic
from the waste stream. That's obviously a big piece of
what we do, so we do some of that. There
(32:20):
are a bunch of companies in the ecosystem that we
we speak with quite regularly that are trying to do
community based reuse programs, and we try to help where possible.
But I think the very basic strategy, at least for me,
is looking after you know, sales and marketing and partnerships,
is to you know, to win one university at a time,
(32:42):
and that is a big segment of a population that
we can influence and then send out into the world
to say, why is there not a reuse program here
at the coffee shop? Okay, there's a there's a bring
my own mug program, Sure that's pretty widely adopted at
this point. But what if I don't have my own
I don't want to use the plastic cup, or I
don't want to use the single use cup. I kind
(33:04):
of keep going back to earn, earn the right to
have the next conversation type of thing.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Again, great experience is the key to unlocking that relationship
and really building and maintaining it useful. Got a lot
on its plate, and that's a reusable plate. What's next
where you headed.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
For now? We're busy on college campuses. There's a lot
of them, and there's plenty that we're not on yet,
So we're spending a lot of time there. We're spending
a lot of time on the ecosystem partnerships. So, like
I said, the way to make reuse you know, really
grow at scale is to make it easy and end
to end, and so we're spending a lot of time
(33:47):
on that. And then I think the natural progressions, you know,
like we've talked about a bunch are starting to be
in some of the other closed communities, starting to trickle
its influence in to open community settings. So I think
that's the kind of general roadmap at this point.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
So how can folks follow the story? And if they
wanted to find a cafeteria to see it for themselves,
where would they go?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah, so for one thing, you know, follow us on
I think I think my team's most active on LinkedIn
with all of our success stories, and I've got a
phenomenal marketing team that does a does a ton of
content on things to think about you know why we
try to educate as much as anything, not just not
just be salesy and you know, explain what microwave safe
(34:36):
really means and explain you know why microplastics you know,
making their way you know, into your body should be
a major concern right now. So we spend a lot
of time on that. And so you know LinkedIn or
or our socials are a good place to start. But
we also if you're ever on a college campus, you know,
it's not exclusive to students, So you can download the
(34:57):
Useful app. You can go get something checked out to you,
use the app to find a return station, use the
app to find an outlet that's using Useful. There are
ways to interface with what we're doing or other reuse
companies because there's a lot of activity in this space
at this point.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Well, Rob, thanks very much for sharing the story.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yes, my pleasure. I appreciate I know we've been on
a couple of times now, so appreciate you highlighting useful
and very much appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Well, come on back and tell us about the progress
as it continues. Thanks very much.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
I'd love to Thanks Mitch, welcome.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Back to Sustainability in your ear and you've been listening
to my conversation with Rob Kuttner. He is chief revenue
officer at the reusable food service, packaging and technology platform
company Useful. It's being adopted by university campuses and can't
support the next generation's desire to reduce its environmental impact
at cafeterias and retail outlets. So take some time to
(35:59):
learn about the system and Useful team and history at
useful dot us. Useful is spelled with two l's, two l's,
not one useful dot us. Reuse is a necessary practice
if we're going to bring society back within the planet's
carrying capacity for life, for human life, and for life
across the planet. In twenty twenty five, humans exhausted nature's
(36:22):
carrying capacity on July twenty fourth, or Earth Overshoot Day.
We can push that date out till later end of
the year by avoiding the use of single use landfill
bound packaging. But reuse is just one of many steps
that we need to take, and Rob's frank acknowledgment that
reuse is inherently less convenient than using something once and
(36:42):
tossing it in the trash is important to note the
benefits of that extra effort are tangible. We have to
surface that for people, help them understand that the energy
we expend bringing food service items back for washing and
reuse outweighs the energy expanded and emissions associated with that
of plastic food package. It's a matter then of making
reuses convenient as possible, but telling that story and finding
(37:05):
the right incentives to encourage people to participate. In bottle
deposit Bill states return rates are substantially higher, sometimes over
sixty five seventy percent for pet bottles. We need to
think about the same kind of incentive system across the economy,
not built in as regulatory charges, but built into the
business of making these systems available at an affordable and
(37:29):
economic price. College students will be able to set the
course for their generation by taking those extra steps necessary
to keep materials in circulation that the universities were useful
as being used today. It's focused on the convenience gap,
as rob explained, and many industries can learn from useful
as we increase our reliance on reusables, so check it out.
(37:51):
The key, of course is to develop an ecosystem and
useful as reusable packaging would not be viable without the
tracking systems, the integration services, the local local washing and
inventory management capacity that it brings to solving a campus's
reuse challenge. Rob reiterated what we've heard over and over
that the effort must produce positive results at the bottom line. Roi,
(38:15):
as Bane and Company reported recently has become the driving
force for growing adoption of sustainable practices. Now note that
I said sustainability efforts are growing. They're not shrinking in
the face of the current assault on the practice by
the federal government because companies now recognized that the threat
to future business performance represented by the take make waste
(38:37):
economic model that exploded onto the scene in the late
twentieth century is a path to destruction, to financial destruction.
So starting with simple steps, not grandiose and unrealistic promises
of revolution and process, can make the path tractable, attractive,
and manageable for companies in any industry. And those are
(38:57):
the first steps that always require finding partners, standing up
new supply chains, new logistic capabilities, and so forth. By
developing a financially sustainable business model through experimentation, that is
the way that we blaze the trail to reduce waste,
reduced extraction of natural resources and improved customer satisfaction while
(39:19):
turning an increased profit. So we're going to keep an
eye on useful and of course we're going to explore
other reuse strategies. Stay tuned, folks, and I hope you'll
take a moment to check out the more than five
hundred episodes of Sustainability in your Ear that we produce today.
Writing a review on your favorite podcast platform will help
your neighbors find us. Folks, you're the amplifiers that can
(39:40):
spread more ideas to create less waste. So please tell
your friends, family, and coworkers that they can find Sustainability
in your Ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible or
whatever purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you
for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is Sustainability in your
Ear and we will be back with another innovator interviews soon.
(40:02):
In the meantime, folks, take care of yourself, take care
of one another, and let's all take care of this
beautiful planet of ours.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Have a green deck,
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