Chicken restaurant KFC Canada has announced that select restaurants will begin testing a new fibre-based ‘spork’ (a fork and a spoon combined) during this month. Once the piece of cutlery is introduced permanently across Canada, KFC will eliminate 40 million pieces of plastic waste from its operations. The spork is made from bamboo, corn and sugarcane. This mixture is compostable at room temperature – breaking down into biomass, carbon dioxide and water. This natural process requires no additional treatment and leaves no toxic by-products, taking only 18-months to decompose.
“Operating sustainably has always been part of our DNA. We will continue to invest and innovate to protect the communities we operate in as well as the world around us,” said Nivera Wallani, President and General Manager, KFC Canada. “Moving to a compostable, fibre-based cutlery is one of many highlights in our journey to eliminate harmful plastics and waste from our business. We hope this sets an example for the food industry and keeps us collectively moving forward.”
Earlier this year, KFC announced that by the end of 2021 it will remove 12 million plastic poutine containers from its operations by switching to a bamboo packaging solution. Additionally, within the last year, KFC eliminated 50 million plastic straws, 10 million plastic bags and 22 million Styrofoam containers from its system – replacing them all with fibre-based alternatives.
KFC Corporation is a subsidiary of YUM! Brands Inc. and operates more than 23,000 restaurants in more than 140 countries and territories around the world including more than 600 locations in Canada so hopefully this role out will be a permanent addition and go worldwide.
“We are always striving to reduce our environmental footprint. After achieving several major sustainability milestones recently we’ve started pushing further and looking at all aspects of the customer experience – right down to the cutlery in our restaurants,” Armando Carrillo, Food Innovation Manager, KFC Canada. “Our new cutlery takes very little from the earth to make and doesn’t harm it when we’re done with it.”
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