Dive Brief:
- Bold Reuse recently announced a stadiumwide reusable cup program with the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium and an arenawide rollout at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, home to the Kraken professional hockey team and Storm women’s professional basketball team.
- The company will provide 42,000 cups to be used at every Chiefs home game and event, starting this month. The partnership is significant because it “marks the first time an NFL stadium has eliminated single-use plastic cups by enabling reuse systems across every fan zone, club, and suite,” Bold Reuse explained in its announcement.
- The reuse operator will continue to offer partial venue services and to participate in events, such as this year’s WNBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis and the partnership with the San Francisco 49ers and PepsiCo for reusable cups in special club areas of Levi’s stadium this football season.
Dive Insight:
Bold Reuse manages closed-loop systems at stadiums, entertainment venues, corporate campuses and schools. It operates in a handful of U.S. cities and aspires to be active in the 25 major metro markets across North America. While each venue is unique, “we feel very confident that we have the playbook to make closed-loop reuse systems very successful,” said CEO Jocelyn Quarrell.
The partnership with the Chiefs follows Bold Reuse establishing a wash hub in the Kansas City area in 2024, in part to service the city’s National Women’s Soccer League team at a nearby stadium. It’s a sign that confidence within the customer base is increasing, said Bold’s Chief Revenue Officer Heather Watkins.
“Now, people are ready,” Watkins said. “The Chiefs going full-stadium NFL is just such a cool point for where we are in the industry. I don't think we could have imagined that two years ago.”
Bold Reuse pitches full-venue rollouts from the get-go as more efficient and cost effective, in part because there are fewer overall SKUs within a venue. Limited pilots can end up being expensive and complex, and require training consumers and employees in a specific way.
The company says it’s now signing multiyear deals for reuse programs. “Pilot is not a word that we're using anymore when we're having conversations with potential customers” about venuewide programs, Quarrell said. “There's no reason to pilot when we have a tried-and-true strategy to bring these programs to life.”
It’s not just sports; Bold Reuse is also gaining exposure to venues through music events. The operator is a partner on the Protect Where We Play Tour, an initiative with the Ocean Conservancy and the Green Operations & Advanced Leadership venue network to bring reusable cup activations to select events. Bold Reuse supported the effort at a Coldplay concert in Las Vegas, with upcoming events planned with The Lumineers and Billie Eilish in Georgia and New York.
“It's an opportunity for the venue to try before they buy” and get familiar with how reuse works, said Watkins. “And then our goal, of course, is to convert them, transition them into an evergreen implementation, which then would enable us to build out permanent infrastructure in those specific markets.”
