cute! what about those who would not want a biscut. i would hate to see food wasted :(

Interesting way to serve biscuits, but will the biscuit really function as lid and prevent spills for customers on the go?

no lid offers 100% protection, it is only a minimum security in case your car for instance trembles when passing over an obstacle. Otherwise, as far as I know, there's no lid that keeps the content from falling when the recipient is not vertical.

Cute ideea and nice presentation! I like the "biscuit and coffee" combination, but, for safe walking you can drop another biscuit on top :). Double the safety = double the pleasure! :)) Anyway, nice work! Good luck!

wow! this is really an excellent project! i love the whole idea and the strong well-structured argumentation!

i want a friendly green cup, too! :)

very nice project ...good job

What about people who have food allergies? Should they just not bother to go to Starbucks if the cups or the lids are made of food they can't eat?

As far as we could research, the most common food allergies are mainly based on cheese, eggs, caffeine, milk, seafruit and members of "bean" family. so if one is diagnosed with food allergy, he shouldn't consume caffeine and milk based products at all. and well, one could, in the end, offer the biscuit to someone else :p.

Have a look at jhanna's post regarding corn-based plastics here: http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5097

and mine here: http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5034

Corn-based products are a tradeoff, not a magic bullet. Diverting land from food production to produce disposable products or fuel is a topic to be approached carefully.

really cute idea. Have you thought about what kind of biscuit you would use? You want something that wouldn't get soggy but would still taste good (right now I'm sort of envisioning a stale biscotti). Some work would also need to go into designing the cup such that an easy to shape cookie seals the lid. (Have you done much research into materials or sealing mechanisms for this idea?)

If you can work out the issues, this could be a really cute idea--even if it didn't become the standard it could even be a novelty option they offered at stores (sort of like soup in a bread bowl)

jblevinson: thank you for your feedback. during the concept process we did our best to analyse the issue from as many angles as possible. the conclusion was that whatever the solution, a compromise must be made. the idea was to diminish the compromise as much as possible. the adopted solution solves the cutting down of trees problem (the source for paper), and we think this is a great deal, because it takes tens of years for a tree to grow... it is true that producers will need a greater area of land to cultivate corn, but corn is also used for feeding animals or food producing, so i think the balance is quite ok in the end.

Wheat allergies and celiac disease are very very common (at least one in every 133 people has celiac disease) so the biscuit would definitely not work for a fairly large percentage of potential customers. And no, not everyone who cannot tolerate wheat will have a problem with milk or caffeine--these are totally unrelated allergies.

ellensandbeck: This is a good point, although we are not doctors, but designers :). If you put the problem this way, the companies should provide, besides the biscuit types we presented in our project (usual biscuits, non sweet, or with sweetner for diabetics), also oat / rice / corn based biscuits (oat biscuits are my favourite :P).

This would be great.

Great idea! I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'd order one for the biscuit :p - and for the trees, too. And I'd love to be able to recycle it here: http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5253 . Love your concepts, you're really creative!

nogooduseless; nicoc: Thanks for your support and appreciation!

a good concept and a beautiful presentation, I love it!

Nice product and I like single-use cup ideas. Biodegradable, sustainable, renewable. The issue is ensuring that the corn used as source product is grown in energy efficient and environmentally sound ways, which is not always the case. For example, a bushel of corn requires about 4,000 gallons of water and as much as a half gallon of oil to produce. This also has the issue of diverting resources used for growing food, potentially raising the cost of food for human consumption itself.

Hello. So does your cup need extra sleeves to indicate the sweetness/etc or can you use it without sleeves? Not to be negative or anything, but what is an incentive for people to carry your cup instead of reusuable cups or tumblers? Tumblers can provide 100% safe lid, right? Other than that, I think biscuit idea is really cute.

hahasunnychang: the incentive would be on the one hand the joy of getting a biscuit to go with your coffee (most people serve coffee that way), and on the other hand the fact that you saved a tree and you can easily recycle the cup (even yourself), without facing the problem that the top is made from a different material (such as plastic)... as for the reusable cups...we don't find it a very good idea because most people wouldn't want to carry a dirty cup in their bag until they take it back to the coffee shop or other special place.... thanks for your feedback!

Good idea of a way to motivate people to think about the origin and recyclability of their coffee cups. There seem to me to be many more people that get an occasional coffee or a coffee treat (like yours) than would carry a reusable cup with them. If you wouldn't mind, have a look at my idea of another simple way of getting people to recycle - http://www.jovoto.com/contests/drink-sustainably/ideas/5258 . Thanks and good luck!