Muffin Break have over 200 bakery cafes all over Australia, in every state and territory. We’ve been operating since 1989, which means many Australians grew up with the brand. We’re proud to hold a place in our customers’ hearts!
We’re always looking to serve our customers across the country, with new stores opening around Australia and internationally all the time!
We sell 19 million cups of coffee a year in Australia. On average one Muffin Break store can sell over 7,500 hot beverages a month. This means we can have a major impact on customer behaviour through our campaigns and initiatives.
What inspired you to sign up your stores as Responsible Cafes?
At Muffin Break, our philosophy is the “Good Goes In”. From our freshly baked goods to our award-winning coffee, we try to inject a little bit of good into our customers’ days!
At times, it has been perceived that franchise chains aren’t as invested in the environment as independent cafes. We too want to make a difference and work towards the greater good. The fact that we have over 200 stores across the country means that we’re able to leverage our network to great effect.
It’s a major directive behind our recent “We Go Together” campaign, which is a recycling initiative with Simply Cups. For every takeaway cup sold, we’ll pay to have one recycled. We go together with this planet – let’s work together to make it a better place.
What are the challenges for you to implement this change?
Awareness. Educating existing and potential customers about the joint initiative with Responsible Cafes and promoting the great work that both brands do!
Now you are tackling the issue of coffee cup waste, are you looking to review other waste issues?
We are committed to sustainability and the community we’re serving, and are always looking for areas where we can make small, positive changes.
Our support of Simply Cups will also assist them to build more infrastructure, a plant for more cup capacity, more collection bins and ultimately more cups being recycled.
We also offer crockery for dine-in customers and are currently changing over our plastic spoon stirrers to wooden stirrers. Stores are removing their straw dispensers from the counter and will soon be replaced with paper straws!
We also have a partnership with Reground, who collect used coffee grounds from Muffin Break stores and repurpose them in community gardens and projects.
It’s all about keeping as much as we can out of landfill.
We have recently started working with ywaste which is an initiative to help reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away every day simply because its not sold. Working with the app we are able to help sell this food at a discounted price in outlets where we have leftover food which is revolutionising the concept of food donations, helping consumers, wastage and the planet!
What are you most excited about with regard to joining Responsible Cafes?
Being able to make a difference to our local Aussie community means everything to us.
This initiative is about reminding those with a sustainability focus that we too, as a large franchise, can make a difference. Responsible Cafes has a great community of responsible consumers who are conscious where they collect their daily caffeine fix.
We’re also excited about the awareness that we can bring to Responsible Cafes by utilising the power of our national social media platforms. It will be great to have an impact on those travelling out of their local areas for coffee.
How are you communicating this & how are you supporting your customers?
We are communicating this new initiative through our social media channels, as well as through the shopping centres where we are based.
We want to make sure that the locals know that they can head into their local Muffin Break and get an awesome reward for bringing in their reusable cup. We are also offering brand new Keep Cups for customers to purchase in-store.
What is one piece of advice you would give to other coffee chains wanting to make a change?
Make the change now. It’s the right thing to do for our community and country and goes beyond commercial profit.
Small actions can lead to a big change. We all have a responsibility to do right by the environment and customer. Let’s work together.