Drink your hot chocolate and eat the cup
It’s a whole new level of sustainability: have your hot drink in a cup you can eat.
With the cold weather once again settling in, the cafes of Lower Hutt are heating up the competition in their annual Sweet As Hutt Hot Chocolate challenge. But one cafe owner thinks she’s on to a winning idea.
Colab Cafe in High St has partnered with Auckland-based social enterprise The Cookie Project to serve up a hot chocolate in an edible cookie cup.
‘‘We wanted to take that sustainability one step further,’’ cafe owner Claire Matheson said.
Throughout July, when people order a hot chocolate from the High St eatery, the sweet drink will come in a butter cookie cup handmade by the employees of The Cookie Project.
Founded in 2017, The Cookie Project employs Kiwis with disabilities and helps them to understand their value to themselves and to society, co-founder Eric Chuah said.
‘‘Over the last 12 months, we have generated over 500 hours of employment. We have over 20 Kiwis with disabilities on the roster and over 30 on the waiting list.’’
Chuah and co-founder Graeme Haddon were aware of Matheson’s work, creating a deaf-friendly work and training environment through businesses such as Co-Ed Cafe, Coffee Educators and Colab Cafe.
When she called the cookie company earlier this year to see if they wanted to collaborate, Chuah and Haddon jumped at the chance.
Developing the cookie cup took a bit of trial and error as The Cookie Project’s employees figured out what the cup entailed: things such as how much dough should be used and what effect the temperature of the hot chocolate would have on the vessel’s structural integrity.
‘‘Everything you see is handmade. Not everything is going to be exactly the same,’’ Chuah said of the end result.
Matheson has ordered close to 2000 of the cookie cups for when the Sweet As Hutt Hot Chocolate Challenge begins on Thursday.
‘‘We did just under 1400 drinks last challenge and I’m expecting the numbers will probably rise.’’
Colab Cafe has entered the hot chocolate competition every year since it began in 2015. This year will see 17 different cafes and restaurants create signature hot drinks between July 4 and July 28.
Take a look at the hot chocolates on offer and vote for your favourites on the Sweet As Hutt Hot Chocolate Challenge’s Facebook page.