Food & Beverage

Single-use pizza packaging: The pandemic imperative born from a 'common' cup

Is single-use packaging having a new heyday with pizza brands during the pandemic?

Photo: iStock

June 24, 2020

By Natha Dempsey/ president, Foodservice Packaging Institute

Restaurateurs nationwide have come to depend heavily on single-use food service packaging to keep their businesses operating during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are everyday staples, like soda cups, take-out food containers and disposable cutlery that have become ubiquitous in our lives and we have come to rely on for safe curbside pickup or delivery.

Food service packaging has been an unsung hero in many atypical situations. In fact, one of those was the reason such products first came to be. More than a century ago, Kansas doctor, public health officer and reformer, Samuel J. Crumbine, started a campaign to end the use of the so-called "common cup," a ladle or cup that was typically attached to a public drinking fountain and used by all those taking a sip there at the start of the twentieth century.

The doctor — after witnessing a healthy child drink from a public-use metal cup immediately after a patient with tuberculosis had drunk from it — led a campaign to have these public drinking cups banned.

His campaign to end the use of such cups caught on and the "Health Kup," the first paper cup was born. That container was aptly named for its purpose of preventing the spread of disease and since then, single-use packaging has held the same the sanitary benefits for food service operators and their customers.

The cup 'runneth over'

Beyond single-use packaging's key role in the world's current COVID-19 pandemic, such products have played critical roles in past events, like the 1918 Spanish flu that killed 50 million people globally. Across Kansas at the time, Crumbine advised the public not only to refrain from the use of common cups, but also not to spit on sidewalks, which he said would spread germs.

Today, several studies confirm the sanitary benefits of single-use packaging. Conducted by winners of the Samuel J. Crumbine Consumer Protection Award, health departments in Sacramento County, California, and Maricopa County, Arizona, showed this after uncovering evidence of coliform bacteria and increased microbial levels on reusable items tested, compared to their single-use counterparts.

Single-use foodservice packaging is manufactured, packed and shipped to arrive clean at restaurants and other eating and drinking establishments, like hospital cafeterias. When properly stored and handled, these single-use items offer the most sanitary option to serve customers.

The sanitary benefits of single-use items are undeniable. Foodservice establishments are realizing that these go-to products are minimizing the threat of foodborne illnesses and ensuring the safe and sanitary delivery of foods and beverages.

Natha Dempsey is president of the Foodservice Packaging Institute, the trade association for the North American food service packaging industry. She advocates for the interests of the industry and champions its efforts to expand recycling and composting of food service packaging. For seven years, she has administered the Crumbine Award.