Starbucks Global Cold Cup Innovation Challenge

Overview:

The Starbucks Coffee Company (Starbucks) is inviting the global innovation community to help shape the future of single‑use cold cups and lids. Through this Innocentive Challenge, we are seeking next‑generation material solutions that can move beyond today’s reliance on traditional plastic and bioplastics

 

 

Current solutions require tradeoffs, and with the continued growth of cold beverages globally, the need for new material innovation is increasing.

This effort reflects Starbucks’ commitment to action-oriented innovation—bringing together external expertise and fresh perspectives to focus on identifying material solutions for future cups and lids that are transparent, plastic-free, and compostable.

Submissions should address functional performance, customer experience, and regulatory needs in an integrated way. Solutions should be both innovative and practical, with the potential to be tested, refined, and potentially scaled across diverse markets around the world.

Through this effort, Starbucks aims to unlock new material pathways that deliver on the quality and experience customers expect while aligning with evolving regulatory standards.

 

Prize/IP

The Winning proposed solutions will be taken through thorough concept validation, then prototyping stages in the subsequent months. The ability for winning Solvers to be directly involved informing these stages is a key requirement.

Your IP Rights are protected in this Prize Challenge; Starbucks must pay you an award to obtain them.

The total prize award pool is $100,000, and the best proposed solutions have the opportunity to win awards up to $50,000 for meeting the Solution Requirements. Proposed Solutions that partially meet the Solution Requirements may be awarded, with no award being lower than $20,000.

The Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted, and Awards will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of your proposed solution by the evaluation team against the Solution Requirements.

To receive an Award, Solvers will be required to assign exclusive ownership rights to the Intellectual Property (IP) rights in their proposed solution to Starbucks. Solvers will retain all rights to any proposed solution not Awarded.

Starbucks is willing to explore a collaboration agreement if exclusive IP rights cannot be assigned by a Solver that is an organization already owning the IP rights in their proposed solution.

 

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on September 14, 2026.

 

Please review the later Participation Guidance section before submitting a proposal.

 

Login or register your interest to start solving!

 

 

Seeker/Eligibility:

Starbucks Coffee Company is a global coffee company founded in 1971 and headquartered in Seattle, Washington, operating coffeehouses around the world.

Employees of Starbucks, their family members, and company affiliates are not eligible to receive awards for this Challenge.

Background:

As Starbucks continues to grow its cold beverage business globally, packaging sits at the intersection of customer experience, rapidly changing regulatory landscapes, and environmental responsibility. The industry faces challenges, including the following:

• Materials that deliver transparency and durability often rely on plastics
• Alternatives that reduce/eliminate plastic dependency to meet regulatory requirements may face limitations in performance, or are often opaque

This Challenge requires innovation to rethink material systems and find new approaches that move beyond traditional solutions. 

Through this Challenge, Starbucks is inviting innovators to bring forth material solutions that can be applied to future cold cup and lid systems—addressing functionality, customer experience, and regulatory compliance, to help bridge these gaps.

Selected promising concepts may move forward into testing and development, with the goal of informing a scalable pathway toward next-generation cold cups and lids that meets the needs of customers, communities, and environment.  

 

Challenge:

To meet the Challenge objective, we want to identify a material with the following characteristics.

First, the material must be plastic-free. We define plastic-free material as a material that contains no synthetic plastics, meaning it’s made from natural substances without addition of fossil-fuel-derived polymers (like polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.) or even without plant-based bioplastics that mimic traditional plastics. For more, see this document.

Second, the material must be compostable, that is, with a clear path to the BPI certification. That means that a product can break down completely in composting facilities into nutrient-rich soil, without leaving harmful residues or impacting compost quality. Both industrial and home composability certifications are preferred.

Third, the material must be transparent, that is, having a haze of no more than 5% as measured by a hazemeter (conforming to ASTM D1003).

Given that the cups are used to serve beverages, the material should also be suitable for contact with food. In practice, that means that the material should have the No Objection Letter (NOL) status to food, indicating that the FDA has reviewed the product and has “no questions” about its safety or suitability for food or hot liquid contact.

Additional characteristics should include:

• Rigidity sufficient to allow our baristas to apply lids without crushing the cup
• High heat deflection temperature, sufficient to handle espresso shots without cup deformation
• Superior organoleptic properties, that is, being completely tasteless and odorless.

 

Besides these minimally required characteristics, an ideal material will have the following additional properties:

• Being recyclable. Given the complexity of recycling process (access, acceptance, and infrastructure), recyclability is a preference, not a strong requirement. Yet, ideal material should be recyclable, as per APR Design Guide, or, at the very least, shouldn’t contaminate recycling streams (i.e., not to make other potentially good materials difficult or impossible to recycle, ensuring that the entire batch of recyclables can be successfully processed and repurposed)
• To be able to contain liquids without leaking until after 24 hours of usage and maintain original dimensions through usage
• High impact strength: sufficient to prevent cracking when a cup filled with ice water is dropped from a height of 1 m
• Improved Life Cycle Assessment, meaning that the product has undergone an assessment that shows positive reductions in its overall environmental impact for at least three specific categories: 
  • GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Emissions: The total amount of greenhouse gases released throughout the product’s entire life cycle has been reduced
  • Fossil Fuel Use: The consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and natural gas) required for the product’s production, transportation, use, and disposal has decreased
  • Water Use: The total volume of fresh water consumed or otherwise impacted across the product’s life cycle has been lessened 

Finally, the proposed material should allow it to be produced at a volume of at least hundreds of tons per year and be able to be formed into cups and lids by existing technologies, such as injection molding, thermoforming, or cup formers.

 

We want to stress that we will not accept any material that any measurable traces of the following components:

 

• Polyvinyl Chloride and Polyvinylidene Chloride
• Polystyrene and Expanded Polystyrene
• Bisphenol A
• Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (“forever chemicals”)
• Ortho-phthalates
• Oxodegradable additives
• Chlorine bleach
• REACH-restricted substances

Solution Requirements:

To summarize, the proposed material should possess the following characteristics:

1. Be completely plastic-free
2. Be compostable
3. Have low haze of no more than 5%
4. Have (show path to) NOL for food contact
5. Have rigidity sufficient to allow baristas to apply lids without crushing
6. Have high heat deflection temperature to handle espresso shots without deformation
7. Have superior organoleptic properties
8. Ideally, to be recyclable
9. Be able to contain liquids without leaking until after 24 hours of usage and maintain original dimensions through usage

• High impact strength: sufficient to prevent cracking when a cup filled with ice water is dropped from a height of 1 m
• Show Improved Life Cycle Assessment
• Be able to be produced at a volume of at least hundreds of tons per year
• Be able to be formed into cups and lids by existing technologies, such as injection molding, thermoforming, or cup forming
• Not contain any measurable traces of the components listed in the previous section

 

Important! We are not interested in solutions that provide no more than a literature review on the topic. The proposed material must be practical, that is, provide us with an actionable roadmap to build products that will improve customer experience and to proactively meet local and national regulations. That means that every proposed idea must be solidly supported by a solid scientific rationale and the available (and precisely referenced) literature/patent precedents.

 

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 1-6 are invited.

 

 

This Prize Challenge has the following features:

1. The Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted, and Awards will be contingent upon the theoretical evaluation of your proposal by Starbucks against the Solution Requirements.
2. Starbucks may issue “Honourable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.
3. Starbucks may wish to partner with the Solver at the conclusion of the Challenge. Please indicate your interest in partnering.

Your Submission:

Please login and register your interest to complete the submission form.

The submitted proposals must be written in English and can include:

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to inform us how you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Individual), Solver (Organization), or Solver (Organization – already owning its solution IP).
2. Solution Level – the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of your solution.
3. Partnering – there may be an opportunity to partner at the conclusion of this Challenge. Please indicate if partnering is of interest to you.
4. Problem & Opportunity – highlight the innovation in your approach to the Problem, its point of difference, and the specific advantages/benefits this brings (up to 500 words).
5. Solution Overview – detail the features of your solution and how they address the SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS (500 words, there is space to add more in the summary field, and attach supporting data, diagrams, etc.).
6. Solution Feasibility – Supporting Information and Rationale, such as references and precedents, that will help Starbucks evaluate and validate the feasibility of the solution (up to 500 words). A pre-selection interview may be required.
7. Experience – Direct or adjacent expertise and real-world use cases you or your organization have in relation to the challenge need and your proposed material (up to 500 words).
8. Solution Risks – any risks you see with your solution and how you would plan for this (up to 500 words).
9. Timeline, capability and costs – describe what you think is required to deliver the solution, estimated time and cost (up to 500 words).

• Online References – provide links to any publications, articles or press releases of relevance (up to 500 words).

 

Participation Guidance

1. Submission Close Date: Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on SEPTEMBER 14, 2026.
2. Late submissions: Late submissions will not be considered.
3. Multiple submissions, 3 Maximum: In case of multiple submissions by the same Solver, only 3 submissions – the final 3 submitted – will be considered. Any other submissions will be deleted prior to evaluation.
4. Submission form and attachments: Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.
5. Evaluation notification steps: After the Challenge submission close date, Starbucks will review and select the winning ideas/solutions according to the timeline in the Challenge header. Everyone who submits a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.
6. Use of AI: Please note that any submissions produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.

Learn more: Find out more about participation in Innocentive Challenges.