No additional waste after every “coffee-to-go”: That would have been the mission of the reusable cups from “Kooky”. You could put the cups in the “Kooky boxes” and get the deposit back. The cups were collected and cleaned by the company. But the project turned out to be a flop – Valora and SBB withdrew from the collaboration in the summer. “Kooky” informed its partners at the beginning of the year that they now wanted to focus on the Bern location and the B2B business.
All Swiss employees were laid off
The boxes disappeared at Bern train station, but remained in the city. Around 30 Kooky boxes continued to operate in Marktgasse or Schanzenstrasse. Now that’s over, how «Blick» made public last week. “All employees have already been terminated, and unfortunately operations cannot be maintained as usual,” the newspaper quotes from an internal letter.
Opposite the “CH Media” newspapers Kooky boss Maximilian Zott confirms that the Swiss business will be completely abandoned. Kooky is becoming a pure software company; there are currently only a handful of employees in Germany. In the spring, Kooky co-founder Torge Barkholtz spoke in an interview with “BärnToday” about expansion plans into other cities.
The city of Bern wanted to reduce waste with Kooky cups
In the city of Bern, the Kooky cups were also introduced as part of the Cleanliness Charter. The city and businesses signed this in order to voluntarily reduce the amount of waste. However, the withdrawal of the reusable cup provider does not have a major impact on the charter.
“The Cleanliness Charter doesn’t just stand or fall with the successful recycling of coffee cups,” says Sven Gubler, President of the Berncity inner city organization «Berner Zeitung».
(dak)
