Not only are these bowls and containers leakproof, stackackable and extremely durable, they can be reused – extending their lifespan beyond single use.
Fill these takeaway cartons with hot, cold, wet or dry food — everything in this collection has a specialised inner coating that’s impervious to grease, oil and moisture.
With our ever-expanding range of sandwich bags, you can now choose from cold sandwich bags or hot food bags which are grease resistant and breathable to keep those paninis and toasties from going soggy.
These activity bags can be used to keep the little ones entertained while your diners eat in, but they can also be used as an exciting takeaway lunch bag, with room to pop a sandwich and some snacks inside.
We have a style of cutlery for every taste. Our great quality, eco-friendly cutlery range is made from renewable and sustainable materials including birchwood, sugarcane bagasse or paper.
To complement our range of sustainable takeaway packaging, we now stock condiments in sachets that are all packaged in certified compostable, plastic free paper.
Designed for the cold drinks market, there’s plenty of biodegradable lid styles to choose from, including flat lids, domed lids or lids with sip holes.
Our takeaway packaging case studies show you how we’ve helped major brands and retailers customise their branded packaging to suit their offerings and company image.
We have a team of talented food packaging designers who can create impactful and eye-catching bespoke packaging from scratch or using your existing assets.
We’re not your average takeaway packaging supplier. We go above and beyond to provide a selection of additional services to exceed your expectations. Just like our branded takeaway packaging, our additional services are flexible and tailored to your individual needs.
As a business owner, you know how vital it is to give your customers a positive and memorable experience. There’s no better way to show your dedication to exceptional service than by providing eco-friendly packaging.
This can make looking for sustainable disposable coffee cups a little tricky since there’s such an extensive range of drinks packaging to choose from.
This guide will help you pick the perfect coffee cups for your café, coffee shop or drinks stall, or any other business selling hot and cold beverages. Let’s get started!
Grande, venti… large? Naming coffee sizes can be complicated. That’s before you get into the types of coffee you may offer, from macchiatos to frappuccinos.
No matter what kind of hot drinks you’re serving, you need the right size coffee cups to suit your drinks menu. This will ensure your customers won’t be left disappointed with their selection — something eclectic coffee names can get in the way of.
Here’s a simple guide to coffee cup sizes for different kinds of coffee:
Each of these designs is available in various sizes. If you like a particular style, you can get multiple sizes for your entire selection of beverages.
Check out ouronline shop and discover a full range of eco-friendly coffee cups.
Different Types of Disposable Coffee Cups
Once you’ve figured out which size packaging you need for your beverages, it’s time to think about the design that’s most appropriate for your menu of drinks — and your budget.
We’ve outlined the most popular styles of coffee cups below, from our most cost-effective packaging to more elaborate and up-market designs:
These cups are made of single-layer paperboard and are best suited to cold drinks. If you’re using these to serve hot drinks, it’s a good idea to pair them with a coffee cup sleeve and even a cautionary message. Simple but effective, these affordable takeaway coffee cups are a popular product choice for eco-conscious businesses on a budget.
Our best-selling coffee cups, double wall designs offer maximum insulation and have immense structural integrity. They’re ideal for hot drinks and are still cost-efficient since customers won’t need a sleeve for hand protection. If you opt for a branded coffee cup, your design will appear bold and bright against the white upper and lower rims.
This design offers similar benefits to double wall coffee cups and will keep your customer’s coffee hotter for longer compared to single-wall cups. The textured surface of these takeaway coffee cups provides excellent insulation and offers more grip, making carrying hot drinks a breeze, even on cold, wet and windy mornings.
You can add branding to each of these coffee cup designs to maximise your presence and exposure. Get in touch for a free design quote.
Disposable coffee cups feature a lining to prevent leaks and spills. If no lining was present, liquids would be absorbed by the packaging and render your coffee cups useless.
The lining of coffee cups can be crafted from different materials. The application of these materials affects the way that coffee cups should be disposed of:
Compostable coffee cups feature a lining made from PLA (polylactic acid), a compostable and biodegradable material. PLA provides a natural, glossy, liquid-resistant barrier. It’s heat resistant too, so it’s ideal for use with hot drinks.
Plus, PLA is a naturally occurring substance, so it’ll break down into organic compounds when it degrades — a process that takes around three to six months under the right conditions.
It’s a more environmentally friendly choice compared to plastics, which take centuries to decompose and degrade into microplastics, especially if they’re disposed of in general waste and end up in landfills.
Opt for PLA-lined coffee cups if there aren’t any recycling points in your customers’ vicinity. Compostable and biodegradable cups don’t cause as much damage to the environment as plastic-based receptacles even if they’re discarded in general waste.
Recyclable coffee cups are crafted with a PE (polyethylene) lining and have a glossy finish on the inside and outside of the packaging. These cups are perfect for hot drinks but are even better for cold or chilled beverages. If condensation forms, the excess moisture won’t be absorbed and spoil the packaging — these coffee cups will stay strong even at cold temperatures.
The internal PE coating prevents liquid from soaking through the wall, while the glossy external coating prevents condensation from moistening the outside of the cup.
Use these cups if there are plenty of recycling points available in your area. Nearly all homes and businesses have recycling points too.
Reusable coffee cups have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years. Many popular coffee houses have incentivised customers to bring their own receptacles, but this isn’t always convenient.
Plus, reusable coffee cups need to be used up to 250 times before they can be deemed environmentally preferable to disposable cups. That puts a lot of undue pressure on consumers to remember their reusable cup when leaving the house.
So what are the benefits of using single-use coffee cups?
There are three undeniable advantages:
Convenience — As mentioned, disposable cups offer a level of convenience that reusable beverage containers cannot match.
Variety — Multiple sizes and designs make serving various drinks straightforward for businesses and enjoyable for consumers.
Disposability — When paper coffee cups have been used, they can easily be recycled or composted, domestically or commercially.
Since paper cups are made from natural materials, they’re inherently biodegradable. They don’t cause as much harm to the environment as synthetic products — even if they’re thrown away in general waste, they’ll degrade hundreds of years faster than any kind of plastic.
We created a beautiful design for Miss V’s, an independent coffee shop in Cornwall. These coffee cups with lids feature an impressively detailed design that’s both elegant and eye-catching.
The colour design contrasts nicely with the lid and the bottom of the double walled cup, but the real ingenuity is in using sustainable materials. Every aspect of the cup can be recycled, in turn, reducing plastic waste and providing Miss V’s patrons with a caffeine kick — one that doesn’t come with a bad environmental aftertaste.
Interested in branded packaging for your business? Get in touch for a free design quote.
Eco-Friendly Accessories for Hot Drinks
Since the UK banned plastic straws and stirrers in 2020, paper and wooden alternatives have taken their place. There are several essential coffee cup accessories you need to provide a completely eco-friendly service:
Probably the most important to your hot drinks selection are coffee cup lids. Our lids perfectly fit our coffee cups to help prevent leaks and spills, making transporting your hot takeaway drinks risk-free.
We have a selection of compostable cup lids made from bagasse — a natural by-product of sugarcane harvesting — designed to fit our range of paper cups. Each cup lid will fit various cup sizes to make things easy.
If you’re using single wall paper cups to serve hot beverages, coffee cup sleeves will prevent your customers from burning their hands when you serve them their drinks.
These eco-friendly sleeves can be branded and used in conjunction with plain paper cups, allowing you to include advertising or promotions, creating cost-effective branded packaging.
Iced coffees are best enjoyed with a straw. Paper straws make an adequate replacement, but biodegradable straws made from PLA are more sturdy and would be well-suited to frappucino-style drinks.
Wooden stirrers are ideal for customers who want to sweeten their drinks with sugar or add milk.
For orders of multiple hot drinks, our sturdy cup carriers hold up to four beverages. Also available as a two-cup carrier, their cardboard construction makes them completely recyclable and compostable.
They’ll help prevent spills in the car or walking and are particularly useful at festivals or outdoor events.
Eco-Friendly Branded Coffee Cups
Want more from your drinks packaging? Branded paper cups provide a visually appealing and cost-effective way to promote your business.
Alongside our comprehensive standard eco-friendly coffee cups, we can fully customise your packaging to promote your brand. We use water and vegetable-based inks to create deep, vibrant colours, making your packaging stand out sustainably.
Want to add your logo or artwork to these coffee cups? Get in touch for a free design quote and let us help you create awesome branded coffee cups.
The new year is underway and everyone is drinking more coffee to get them through the day.
Here at Takeaway Packaging our eyes are wider than ever and, though still Winter, we’ve certainly got a spring in our step.
You see, we like to road-test all our products in order to provide first-hand knowledge and advice to our customers.
This means we know just what it’s like to drink coffee from a Double-Wall cup versus a Ripple Cup and what that’s like over a Compostable Cup.
We’ve been drinking a LOT.
We have drawn the line at tastings of different coffees in the same cup (mainly for health reasons), but it has got us thinking (mainly in bed, late at night, unable to sleep), where in the world does the very best coffee come from?
What follows is a low down of the best (and most expensive) coffees the world has to offer.
As a benchmark for price, Starbucks’ House Blend retails at £3.50/200g bag of beans.
Blue Mountain Coffee – Jamaica
We start our journey 5,000ft above sea level in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. These mountains are famed for their rare, small-batch coffee plantations.
The beans undergo a meticulous process of grading and sorting which ensures quality consistency.
As an indication of this coffee’s rarity, the annual yield of Blue Mountain beans is about 0.1% of the coffee produced in Columbia, and nearly 80% of the produce is exported to Japan.
Because the plantations are so high, they are exposed to an abundance of heavy rainfall which contributes to enhanced growth.
All this rain makes for a particularly pulpy, fleshy fruit (referred to as the cherry) which gives this coffee bean it’s famous balanced and mild flavour.
Best price we’ve found: £40 /200g
Kopi Luwak – Indonesia
Coffee snobs will have definitely been expecting this one, and possibly those with a passion for the, different.
Luwak coffee undergoes a very ‘special’ process in order to become the well-loved, revered and expensive coffee that it is.
The coffee fruit is eaten by wild, free-to-roam Asian palm civets. If you don’t know what a civet is, here’s a scientific description: it looks like a cross between a cat, a mongoose, a weasel and a racoon.
Once the civet has finished chomping on the bittersweet fruit, the fruit is fermented inside the civet’s stomach during digestion.
The next step, if you haven’t already guessed, is retrieving the leftover coffee bean… from the feces.
It’s this delicate and time consuming process that makes this coffee so unique. Once roasted the end result is a sweeter-tasting coffee having been altered by exposure to the chemicals which aid the civet’s digestion process.
Best price we’ve found: £64 /200g (Watch out for less ethically farmed varieties where the civet is not wild or free-to-roam)
Hacienda La Esmeralda (Geisha) – Panama
When someone speaks of coffee plantations, Panama is seldom the country that gets a mention. Rather, Panamanian coffee seems somewhat an unusual concept altogether.
Far west in Panama, the region of Boquete is home to highland, jungle-esque plantations responsible for some of the most expensive coffee beans on record.
What’s more, this Geisha variety of bean has cleaned up at nearly every major global coffee tasting awards.
Not only does it taste great but production is truly epic. Picking the coffee fruit is no walk in the park, instead it is back-breaking and tedious work.
Coffee pickers have to fight steep highlands, slippery slopes, heat, fire ants and snakes!
All this for an hourly wage of just over £1/hr.
Similarly to Blue Mountain coffee, growth is promoted by frequent rain which is enjoyed by the coffee plants for nine months of the year.
When not raining, shade is sorely needed as protection from the sun and this is afforded to the coffee plants by guava trees.
The yield is small and the production slow. The result is a very expensive coffee, but every self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur should strive to try it.
Much like Kopi Luwak, here we have another coffee that undergoes an extra special process.
This time, however, the coffee bean is ‘refined’ by the Thai elephant!
Chiang Saen, the northernmost region of Thailand, where the country intersects Myanmar and Laos, is where Black Ivory coffee is made.
Part of what makes this coffee so extremely expensive is that the producer uses the very Panamanian Geisha beans described above.
The elephants are looked after extremely well by their Mahouts and they live a good life.
When the beans are ingested by the elephants it can take anywhere between 15 to 70 hours for the coffee to be digested and excreted.
As with the civet, an enzymatic reaction takes place in the stomach of the elephant.
Digestive acid breaks down the bitterness-causing protein in the coffee fruit.
Less protein equals less bitterness.
In general, herbivores utilize a lot more fermentation to digest their food which is great because it helps to bring out the sugar of the coffee and impart the fruit of a cherry into the bean.
Best price we’ve found: £162 /200g (USD$1,100/kg)
That’s over 46 times more expensive than the Starbucks House Blend.
Bear in mind that all of these prices are a retail price for beans. Price per cup at a cafe would be on another level!
Happily, the animal-dung process for creating sippable delicacies isn’t exclusive to the coffee world.
Tea-drinkers can now rejoice in the knowledge that a they too can get in on this recycled-goodness. There have been some exciting plans in China to produce organic green tea which has been consumed by a panda bears.
Watch this space.
So whether it’s gone in and come out, drink in or drink out, talk to us about the best way to serve your coffee with our wide range of takeaway coffee cups.
Our bespoke design service means that your takeaway coffees can look as weird and wonderful as the coffee inside!
Even though Winter doesn’t officially begin until late in December, it’s started to turn very cold and we’ve definitely been feeling the effects here at Takeaway Packaging HQ.
We’ve been thinking about the best way to keep warm while we prepare for a busy festive season.
One suggestion was that we could line ourselves in super-insulating Double Wall Paperboard. After all, it’s the same material we use for some of our bespoke, branded coffee cups and that certainly stays hot.
It wasn’t until lunchtime two days ago, when the hunger pangs kicked in, that the perfect solution to keeping warm became obvious to us…Soup.
We love eating soup. We love making soup. We love designingpots for soup.
Are your customers short on time but don’t want to miss a cosy café soup lunch?
Look no further.
Our custom soup pots solve the cosy-soup/working-lunch dilemma. There’s simply no need for your customers to eat in and fall behind on work when they can take your soup with them.
Bespoke designs mean you can maintain your branding presence, and snug, branded lids mean that your delicious soup travels safely and secure, from kettle to desk.
We’ve selected 3 of our favourite recipes for soup inspired by the festive season to tempt you and your customers.
Creamy Cauliflower and Bacon Soup
This soup is simple, creamy, smokey and comforting. Bacon and cauliflower pair so well together and this is sure to be a winner.
You will need: 8 rashers of bacon, cut into pieces 1 medium onion, finely chopped 6 spring onions, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced 4 medium cloves of garlic, thinly sliced 1 litre of chicken stock 2 bay leaves 350ml of heavy cream 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1.. Heat bacon in a large heavy-based pan, stirring constantly until bacon is completely crisp. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving the fat in the pan.
2. Add onions, half the spring onions and garlic. Cook and stir constantly, scraping browned bits from bottom of the pan until the onions have softened.
3. Add chicken stock, bay leaves, cream and cauliflower then season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until cauliflower is tender.
4. Using a stick blender (or equivalent), blend soup until completely smooth (may need to be done in batches).
5. Strain if extra-smooth is desired. Stir in a little more hot chicken stock if too thick.
6. Season with salt and pepper and serve with sprinkled crispy bacon pieces and the remaining spring onions.
‘Mmmm bacon’
Spiced Butternut Squash Soup
This soup is perfect for curing wintery chills. It’s spicy, a bit different and contains a glug of Santa’s favourite drink.
You will need: 1.5kg of butternut squash, peeled and seeded 50g butter 1 medium onion 1 leek, sliced 2 cloves garlic, sliced 1 litre of chicken stock 2 large potatoes 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper 1/8 tsp ground allspice 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg 1/8 tsp ground ginger Salt and freshly ground pepper 125ml sherry 125ml double cream 125ml milk 125ml soured cream (optional garnish)
1.. Preheat oven to 190 C. Pour small layer of water into a baking dish. Place the squash halves cut-side-down on the dish.
2. Bake for around 40 mins or until a fork can easily pierce the flesh. Allow to cool slightly, then remove the peel and set aside.
3. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion, leek and garlic and sauté for a few minutes until tender.
4. Pour the chicken stock into the pot. Add the potatoes and bring to the boil. Cook for about 20 mins or until soft. Add the squash and mash with the potatoes until the chunks are small. Use a stick blender to purée the soup until smooth (a food processor used in batches would also work).
5. Season the soup with the cayenne pepper, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, salt and pepper. Stir in the sherry, cream and milk. Heat through, but do not boil.
6. After serving, top with a dollop of soured cream, and smile.
Mulligatawny Soup
Our final choice is a bold one. Similarly to number 2, it’s full of warming spices and wintery veg. This heritage-rich dish harks back to the British Raj and is steeped in history as much as it is peppery, curried-beef stock. This is a soup for park benches in the winter and watching the world go by.
1.. Heat the olive oil in a large pan, and cook the onion for 4-5 minutes until beginning to soften. Add the minced beef, and cook with the onion until it is browned all over, breaking up with a wooden spoon as you go.
2. Stir in the carrots and butternut squash, and toss together with the mince and onions cooking for just a few minutes, then stir in the chilli and ginger, and cook for a further minute.
3. Add the curry paste and chopped tomatoes, and mix, then add the stock and mango chutney. Simmer for 25 minutes until the vegetables are tender.
4. Meanwhile, place the rice in a small saucepan and cover with cold water about 3cm above the level rice. Bring to the boil and simmer until all the water has been absorbed by the rice.
5. Remove from the heat, cover and leave to sit while the soup is cooking.
6. Stir the rice into the soup along with the chopped coriander. Then serve with a dollop of greek yoghurt.
There you have it, 3 soups we are sure will help you and your customers to survive the cold and start feeling festive.
Not as obsessed with soup as we are? Try filling our pots with a hearty winter stew or start the day right with porridge sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.
