Muffin Break Northland Shines Through With Sustainability

Muffin Break Northland has earned some positive attention through their commitment to sustainability. The Preston, Victoria location has been keeping it green for some time now, and it seems that all the right people are starting to take notice. Just recently, Sustainable Sally herself paid the storefront a visit to have a quick chat about the changes Muffin Break franchisee, Shirley, and Muffin Break Northland have achieved. 

For the uninitiated, Sustainable Sally (real name: Sally Williams) was the face of the nationally broadcasted “Brand Power” for over 25 years. Arguably the first product “influencer”, Williams held considerable power in terms of consumer trust (“Helping you buy better.”). These days, she has chosen to step away from the spotlight of mass consumerism to champion a more environmentally conscientious future.  

Franchisee Shirley and Muffin Break Northland have been steadily implementing change, starting with the replacement of single-use plastic cutlery. The new substitute? Paper, wood, and bamboo options.

“We don’t use plastic knives and forks anymore,” says Shirley. 

“We don’t use plastic straws, we changed to paper straws.”

Customers of the Northland location have taken it to the next level in matching Muffin Break’s commitment to sustainability. As Shirley reveals, some eager individuals have been filling up their bags with the store’s discarded coffee grounds for composting. Coffee grounds are rich in potassium and nitrogen with high carbon content, which feeds the soil nicely. Certainly not a bad way to use this waste.

“Customers love them… [they] just want to support us.”

Like all Muffin Breaks across Australia, the Northland location has also been participating in the company’s takeaway coffee cup recycle/upcycle initiative. For every takeaway coffee or hot drink sold, Muffin Break pays to prevent a takeaway coffee cup from ending up in a landfill. This way, it can be properly disposed/repurposed into items of use like the Muffin Break rCup. The initial goal was to prevent a total of 11 million takeaway coffee cups from landfills. At the time of writing this blog, 7 million takeaway cups have been successfully redirected.

Muffin Break as a whole has been building quite a bit of momentum behind their sustainability efforts of late — and achieving impressive results. These last six months alone, the recycling/upcycling initiative in partnership with Simply Cups has scooped up:

• The QSR Media 2019 Award for “Best Sustainability Initiative”, and
• The AFR BOSS Top 10 List’s “Innovation” category (#8)

All this has marked some incredible progress for Muffin Break’s organisation-wide sustainability push. 

Keep an eye out for our next steps forward in this journey here!