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food

Starbucks Japan releases sustainable carrot cake

8 Comments
By Toby M, grape Japan

One of the simple pleasures that come from living in the era of globalization, is the joy of travelling overseas and sampling local menus from your favorite chain restaurants and cafes. For this writer at least, every journey to a new country has to begin with a trip to Starbucks. Aside from providing a caffeinated cure for jet lag, local Starbucks menus offer a glimpse of your host country’s culture.

Take Japan, for example, the Matcha Frappuccino and assorted matcha confectionery reveal the national love of green tea. Or in Canada, the maple-flavored latte is literally comprised of the nation’s most prolific sweetener.

On the other hand, Starbucks is also a reliable place to enjoy familiar fare. Regardless of location, all Starbucks offer lattes, or cookies, and more than likely a slice or two of chocolate cake. Starbucks then offers a taste of home too.

So it was a great surprise to me, when I first came to Japan and peered through the glass counter that displays the food, that carrot cake was nowhere to be seen. Until now, every Starbucks in every country I had ever visited had carrot cake in some form or another. Europe, America, the UK -- carrot cake aplenty. Japan’s Starbucks, and I imagine those in other parts of Asia too, however, seems not to have taken to root vegetable cakes.

Starbucks-Carrot-Cak.jpg

Customers are able to buy a whole carrot cake from Starbucks Japan’s online store. The cake is traybake style and packed full of carrots, raisins, nuts and spices, as well as a generous topping of tangy cream cheese frosting. The website promises a rich, spicy cake that exudes fruit and flavors of carrots; the perfect accompaniment to a steaming cup of coffee.

There’s no doubt, it looks and sounds like the real thing. Carrot cake fans have reason to be excited, ecstatic even. But the really interesting thing about this cake is its sustainable production process.

Starbucks Japan make their carrot cake with carrots grown in compost that uses recycled espresso shot cakes straight from the Starbucks store. Japan’s stores alone produce around 16.5 KG of espresso-bean cake every day, accounting for about 70% of each store’s waste. By turning the bean cake refuse into compost, Starbucks are able to grow ingredients like carrots which they then use in their food products. This, to use the Starbucks lingo, creates a sustainability “loop” that begins and ends with every store.

This writer is personally delighted that Starbucks’ commitment to sustainable business and environmental conservation has resulted in the long-overdue release of carrot cake in Japan. Most importantly, Starbucks’ sustainability loop initiatives are part of the organization’s broader goal of achieving 50% total waste reduction across their business by 2030. So even if carrot cake is a take-it-or-leave-it menu item for you, it may be worth purchasing to support the world’s biggest coffee chain to be more sustainable.

Starbucks’ Carrot Cake product and purchase information

Product name / price: "Carrot cake" Hall type 12.5 cm pound type, ¥3,240 (including tax)

Sales period: Ends as soon as it runs out

Product page on Starbucks Japan's online store

Starbucks’ sustainability initiatives

Starbucks is launching two new “loop initiatives”, which are designed to promote sustainable production of new products for stores by recycling old products and waste from stores. The first of these is the turning used coffee bean cakes which are created every time Starbucks pulls an espresso into compost. The compost is used to grow ingredients such as carrots, or even matcha to make matcha cake bars. The initiative began in Japan in 2014, and currently, a total of 320 stores nationwide recycle their coffee bean cakes. Additionally, the cakes are used to create feed for cows which eventually helps the cows to make the milk used by Starbucks in many of its drinks.

Starbucks-Carrot-Cak.jpg

The second sustainability initiative is a plastic tumbler recycling program. Until August 3, 2021, 500 Starbucks across Japan will be accepting old plastic Starbucks brand tumblers from customers, who in return can receive a 5% coupon for in-store use. The collected tumblers will be recycled by Starbucks and used to make new goods in the future. You can learn more about this initiative on Starbucks Japan's website .

Only plastic Starbucks brand tumblers can be recycled at Starbucks.

Starbucks-Carrot-Cak.jpg

Non-Starbucks tumblers and tumblers made from materials other than plastic cannot be recycled.

Starbucks-Carrot-Cak.jpg

Read more stories from grape Japan.

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© grape Japan

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

8 Comments
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cleoJuly 4  11:19 am JST

Coffee grounds are a good source of slow-release nitrogen. Any gardening guide worth its salt will advise folk to put coffee in the compost. Grounds sprinkled liberally around tasty plants and lightly worked into the soil will help keep slugs at bay.

100% correct.

TxrogersJuly 4  11:07 am JST

¥3,240 (including tax) for piece of carrot case.

I'm not talking about sustainability, you are. I'm pointing out to you that the shop doesn't sell pieces of cake, they only sell whole ones via their website, as clearly stated in the article.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Maybe you can share with us what makes this all so sustainable? I suppose the cake grown in the daily trash is more sustainable and cheaper?

I think what they're getting at is that you said, "a piece", when it's a whole cake. It would be like saying, "¥5,000 for a 330ml can of beer!?", when the article would be about a ¥5,000 case of 24x330ml cans.

Want sustainable? Then, eat a carrot. An organic one.

Carrot cake and carrots are different. It is highly unusual to serve a raw carrot for desert. You would find gathering guests for a subsequent dinner party very difficult.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Want sustainable? Then, eat a carrot. An organic one.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Maybe you should read the article again.

OK - I read it 5 more times.

It still states: "Product name / price: "Carrot cake" Hall type 12.5 cm pound type, ¥3,240 (including tax)"

Maybe you can share with us what makes this all so sustainable? I suppose the cake grown in the daily trash is more sustainable and cheaper?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"Carrot cake" Hall type 12.5 cm pound type, ¥3,240 (including tax)

Thank god that price included tax. For a moment, I was thinking that cake was sure expensive.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Coffee grounds are a good source of slow-release nitrogen. Any gardening guide worth its salt will advise folk to put coffee in the compost. Grounds sprinkled liberally around tasty plants and lightly worked into the soil will help keep slugs at bay.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

TxrogersToday  11:07 am JST

¥3,240 (including tax) for piece of carrot case. There is nothing sustainable about that.

Maybe you should read the article again.

So it was a great surprise to me, when I first came to Japan and peered through the glass counter that displays the food, that carrot cake was nowhere to be seen.

Customers are able to buy a whole carrot cake from Starbucks Japan’s online store.

Product name / price: "Carrot cake" Hall type 12.5 cm pound type, ¥3,240 (including tax)

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

¥3,240 (including tax) for piece of carrot case. There is nothing sustainable about that.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

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