Finding the Best Supplier for Eco-Friendly Plastic Cups

Being in the restaurant business, you can relate to how stressful it is to find reliable suppliers that will stay true to their word.  Running a restaurant, even a small one, is not an easy task, as you need to be on top of everything, from maintaining the high standards of food quality to the supplies needed in the kitchen and the service given by the personnel and staff.  On top of that, you would have to be prepared to help keep everyone’s stress levels to a minimum level and manage to have it stay that way even if the house is full of demanding and picky customers.

image credit: globalmarket.com

That is why I go through great lengths in finding the right supplier who will be my partner in growing the business. Not a lot of suppliers have this mindset because to them, we are just one of the many customers they have.  I have encountered a few of these businesses who don’t treat their clients well and I have since then placed them on the bottom of my list of preferred suppliers. I value good service because we also try at all times to give the best service to our customers. 

Suppliers who give us great service are the ones that I usually go to right away if any of the items in the restaurant needed to be re-stocked. Also, I now go for those who can help my establishment to become more earth friendly.  With what is happening to the environment, one cannot help but do something about it. 

We have also tried to shift to using biodegradable plastic for our takeaway orders, which we order from CupDepot.  They have plastic cups that are made from Polylactic Acid or PLA which are considered to be biodegradable as it comes from renewable sources. The nice thing about this kind of plastic is that it is nonvolatile and odorless, making it the ideal material for food storage options.  Another great thing about CupDepot is that transacting with them is easy.  Everything can be done online without any hassles.  This takes off a lot of load for me since I am a hands-on manager. 

Plastic is considered a pollutant, but thanks to the scientists who are very concerned of the environment, they have helped developed this kind of plastic that does not add to environmental waste. If not for them, we would still be stuck in using plastics that clog our drains and stay in landfills for millions of years. Since PLA is made of renewable sources such as starch from plants like corn, wheat, and beets, it can disintegrate and is considered to be a fully compostable material.  This means that our landfills will be able to go back to its original state as the material can be converted back to organic materials like water and carbon dioxide.

Knowing that my restaurant is using plastic cups made of PLA makes us secure that we are not just earning from the money that our patrons pay for the food that they order but also we are doing our own share of helping in preserving the environment.  We might just be a speck in this huge industry that we are in but this small step will eventually spread until such time that it will become the norm in the industry.