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Edible coffee cup program takes flight on major airline

Air New Zealand is piloting a program to try out edible coffee cups on board, with the aim to meet more of their sustainability goals.

 Air New Zealand has launched a pilot program to offer edible coffee cups on their flights. Photo: Air New Zealand has launched a pilot program to offer edible coffee cups on their flights. Photo: twiice/Facebook

You may soon be able to have your cup of coffee and eat it too on Air New Zealand. The airline is piloting a program to try out edible coffee cups on board, with the aim to meet more of their sustainability goals.

Air New Zealand - which flies in and out of Vancouver's YVR airport - currently serves eight million cups of coffee a year.

Recently the airline moved to fully compostable corn-based cups, however they are looking to yet another new way to meet its sustainability challenges in the air and on the ground.

To that end, Air New Zealand has partnered with a family-run NZ-based company called twiice, which makes the vanilla-flavoured cups that you can eat once you're done your coffee (or, during, if you can't wait and don't bite too low). The cups also work for holding desserts.

Though twiice currently makes just their core flavour, they are working to expand the range to include things like a chocolate-lined cup as well as a gluten-free option.

Air New Zealand Senior Manager Customer Experience Niki Chave says the airline will continue to trial twiice’s edible coffee cups and work with the company and other partners to explore scaling options that could make it a viable long-term product for the airline.