Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Boca Raton company to serve up paper straws as alternative
From Starbucks to Seminole Gaming, businesses increasingly are dumping plastic straws as awareness spreads about the impact on sealife and the environment.
One alternative is paper straws, and a Boca Raton company is jumping on that opportunity.
Farfromboring Hospitality, a new division of Farfromboring Promotional Products, is rolling out multiple varieties of paper straws to be sold to restaurants, hotels and other hospitality venues.
Founder and CEO Robert Stillman said he has made a six-figure investment in developing new paper straws that hold up to more than one drink — and that are priced even for a small restaurant. He has an order for an initial delivery of 200 million straws from Chinese straw manufacturers in early December, he said, with 200 million more to be delivered every week after that.
Stillman said his hospitality customers, which include the Rocco’s Tacos and Tequila Bar restaurants, asked him to find a viable alternative to plastic straws.
Rocco Mangel, coowner of Rocco’s Tacos, part of the West Palm Beach-based Big Time Restaurant Group, said Stillman is “very diligent” in researching alternatives to plastic straws, even bringing him an “avocado straw” for him to try.
“We decided, why not get on the forefront of something that is biodegradable, better for the environment?” Mangel said.
Stillman said there were several challenges in bringing paper straws to the market: few good products are available; many existing paper straws taste like cardboard and dissolve too quickly; and most paper straws are too expensive for regular use by restaurants.
He said his straws are made with better quality paper, and that prices will range from 1.6 cents to 2.6 cents apiece, sold by the case.
“A small restaurant will go through 200,000 to 250,000 straws a year, and a large chain, multi-restaurant operator will go through 20 million to 50 million straws a year,” he said.
They will come in several sizes and colors, wrapped or unwrapped. Personalization also will be available, Stillman said. And they will be glutenfree, which was a request from client Landry’s, a ma-
jor hospitality operator nationwide, he said.
The company also carries paper stirrers for cocktails.
Stillman said his company will initially sell the straws to hospitality venues and then sell online to consumers. Farfromboring Promotional Products has been in business since 2007, and has local and national clients that include Tyco International, TherapeuticsMD, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Macy’s, Turner Broadcasting System, NASA and Time Warner Cable, according to Stillman.
Several South Florida hospitality businesses, including Seminole Gaming and Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, already are responding to the cry for fewer plastic straws.
Miami-based Royal Caribbean has reduced its plastic straw use by 80 percent on its cruise ships, and has a goal of completely eliminating them by year’s end, according to company spokeswoman Janet Diaz. The cruise operator is replacing 77 million of its plastic straw inventory with paper straws on its Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Azamara Club Cruises.
At Seminole Gaming, which includes the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, straws have been provided on request since September. When customers ask for a straw, they receive a more “earth-friendly” compostable straw, said Tracy Bradford, senior vice president of purchasing for Seminole Hard Rock Support Services. The straws are made of plant-based plastic and produced by Eco-Products of Boulder, Colo.
For Seminole Gaming, which uses 9.7 million straws a year in its casinos and restaurants, the new straws cost 20 percent to 30 percent more than the plastic, but “we wanted to put a foot forward to be a better steward of the planet,” Bradford said.
Servers are trained on talking with customers about straw requests, which can help enlighten guests. But “we won’t argue with you” if you want a regular straw, Bradford added.
South Florida restaurants also have been looking for options as cities are banning plastic straws, including Hallandale Beach, Deerfield Beach and Dania Beach. Miami Beach has expanded its ban. Delray Beach and Fort Lauderdale are considering bans.
Danielle Rosse, owner of Oceans 234 restaurant in Deerfield Beach, and president of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association’s Broward County chapter, said the paper straws that have been available from suppliers have tended to be expensive and not always made of the best quality.
So Stillman “is onto something there,” Rosse said. “There’s a huge demand for it right now. Not all paper straws are created equal — some get soggy with one drink, and some survive through three cocktails.”