In South and Southeast Asia, there is an increasing demand for packaging in Food & Beverage (F&B) Industry, particularly single-use plastics (SUPs), dominated by polystyrene and other types of hard-to-recycle plastics, including flexibles (films, sachets, and more). By 2025, these are projected to make up more than 70% of the market for food packaging in the region.

The food service industry heavily utilizes single-use packaging, from the purchase of food supplies to preparation. This is especially so for off-premises food services such as deliveries, drive-throughs, and takeaways, which have increased dramatically during COVID-19, becoming a lifeline for some operators. Being entirely reliant on their supply chains, the sector is unaccustomed to working with alternative solutions for conventional plastics or circular reuse/refill models developed by early-stage companies.

Alternative solutions are mostly driven by early-stage companies that struggle to overcome various challenges, including lack of capital, collaborative industry partners, managerial experience, under-developed value chains, and complex policy and regulatory frameworks.

Some of these challenges would be solved by The SUP Challenge! GoMassive has decided to aim higher and call it The ZeSUP Challenge – the Zero Single-Use Plastic Challenge!

Over the next six months, the SUP Challenge will see eight Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) – GoMassive is one of the two selected from India – accelerate startups in South and Southeast Asia to pilot their solutions with the F&B industry to reduce single-use plastic waste.

The insights derived from their pilots will contribute to a study around understanding the environmental impacts of alternative solutions to single-use plastic packaging. The results will be outlining the environmental considerations associated with single-use replacement business models and the opportunities to reduce negative impacts or recognize carbon savings, relative to virgin plastic production.

The chosen startups would get –
• Project and startup funding from a pool of US$ 500,000
• Dedicated mentorship and technical assistance for the project
• Securing partnerships with F&B partners to pilot solutions
• Deep learning and network building