Award winning eco-friendly returnable packaging for takeaway

Environmental causes are amongst people’s highest priorities – and it’s no wonder. Single-use Food & Beverage packaging is a massive problem and current waste solutions do not work – with only a measly 1% being successfully recycled. At this rate, our oceans will be filled with more plastic than fish by 2050 – and we believe there’s no day like today to make a change.

Safia Qureshi, an award-winning architect, innovation designer and educator, is passionate about what she does. A deep concern for the environment made Safia create an innovative solution for the F&B industry. Her concern for the environment and interest in technology and design prompted her to create an innovative and award-winning returnable packaging system – CLUBZERØ.

Majority of the containers in use globally are made for single-use, including coffee cups, lids, coffee pods, straws, Styrofoam containers, plastic bottles and their tops, plastic wraps, six-pack holders, and plastic shopping bags. Unless recycled, it tends to block rivers and snares animals that mistakenly think it is food.

Designed to replace single-use packaging for food and beverage brands, CLUBZERØ offers a convenient and cost-neutral alternative to disposable packaging. To explain the process in simple terms, restaurants would serve food and beverages in CLUBZERØ packages. Customers dispose of the empty containers at drop-off networks from where they are collected to be taken at a washing facility. Once washed and cleaned thoroughly, they are dropped off at restaurants in the network. A quintessential circular economy!

Our reliance on convenience food and drink is ‘killing the planet’, and it’s on you and me to fix it”

Safia Qureshi, Founder & CEO, CLUBZERØ

Not only does CLUBZERØ make it easy to do the right thing, but the product itself is a level up from disposable packaging. Designed to be user-friendly, CLUBZERØ cups and containers keep their contents hotter/cooler for longer. And of course, every part of the process is ecologically mindful.

All their products produce at least half the carbon footprint of single-use disposable packaging over a typical lifecycle which is a shot in the arm for the circular economy.

Safia ensures that she partners with food and beverage retailers, brands, catering companies operating across cafes, restaurants, canteens, coffee/tea points, self-serve stations and drinks vending machines. Her goal is to ensure CLUBZERØ works with businesses to make to-go more sustainable, working together towards the ultimate goal of zero-waste. They’ve achieved a market-leading return rate of 95% vs industry standard of 60%. One step for a passionate woman, a giant leap for mankind.

WWF forecasts that by 2030 we’ll use 33% more disposable cups and lids, 9% more drinks bottles and work our way through 34% more crisp packets.

Although based in London, they serve customers across the EU and North America, including the worlds largest food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway, NextGen Consortium brands (Starbucks, McDonald’s, Yum Brands, Nestle, Wendy’s) as well as leading foodservice company Baxter Storey, Cushman & Wakefield, Just Eat and retailer John Lewis & Partners. We at TheBrew, eagerly await for CLUBZERØ to serve customers in the Middle East. 

Watch Safia Qureshi discuss her circular vision.