Düsseldorf, 10.05.2021 – The corona pandemic has hardly hit any sector as hard as the food service industry. The contact restrictions have been in place for months, and restaurants, cafés, bars and caterers are not allowed to serve guests anything apart from take-aways and delivery services. In Klüh Catering’s restaurants and cafeterias, this has also led to a noticeable reduction in the need for disposable cups. Since the company’s own catering establishments are already stocked up until 2022, the question of the continued storage or disposal of 69,000 environmentally friendly organic disposable cups arose.
“Of course, it was completely out of the question for us to simply dispose of the eco-cups for composting. Instead, we decided on a solution in the spirit of sustainability and solidarity, and donated them,” explains Thorsten Greth, Managing Director of Klüh Catering.
With the kind support of Silke Steinraths, a freelance photographer who works for Klüh, the cups were initially given to the theatre café Filmdose. In the Cologne institution where Hella von Sinnen and Dirk Bach have also appeared as performers, they are now available to IG Kölner Gastro e.V. - an interest group founded in 2019 for the exchange and mutual support of Cologne’s restaurateurs - for its more than 350 member businesses. A large contingent of the cups has already been given to the Cologne-based private initiative Straßenwächter, which has been providing homeless people with clothing, hygiene articles, food and drinks since 2005.
“We can make very good use of the Klüh cups when serving drinks to the homeless. As a private association, we are glad to receive any donation in cash or in kind - also outside of the pandemic, of course,” says Dennis Bucek, founder of the private initiative Straßenwächter.
Target agreement for more sustainability
The coffee-to-go cups provided by Klüh Catering are 100% FSC-certified and made of renewable plant-based raw materials with a PLA coating. Both the cup itself and the lid are 100 percent biodegradable. The Düsseldorf-based family business thus significantly reduces the burden on the environment - before corona with approx. 3 million compostable cups per year.
Klüh Catering is consistently committed to the responsible handling of resources, also beyond the use of biodegradable coffee cups to avoid plastic waste. For example, the Düsseldorf-based company has been
involved in the United Against Waste initiative since 2016 and is committed to the jointly agreed target of reducing food waste by 30 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030.You can find out more about the corporate responsibility of the Klüh Group at: https://report.klueh.de/geschaeftsbericht-2020/verantwortung/
For more information on IG Kölner Gastro e.V., the theatre café Filmdose and the private initiative Straßenwächter, see:
