Shoonya
Circular food packaging for delivery. Shoonya was our first attempt to put the ideas from Cost to Earth to work, with a team of two MBA interns.
The problem. Food delivery runs on cheap packaging because it is easy to pack, carry and drop off. Much of it is single-use plastic, some of it banned, and no one in the chain owns the waste it leaves behind.
The idea. Reusable containers that move in a loop. Restaurants pack food in clean containers. Customers hand back the empty ones, and delivery riders carry them to a sanitisation hub on their return trip, using space that would otherwise go empty. The hub cleans them and sends them back to restaurants. The goal was a long-term, affordable option for businesses ready to move away from plastic, and better habits for everyone.
What we did. We built a full proposal covering operations, production, materials and the current market. We mapped every partner the loop would need: delivery riders, food ordering apps, restaurants and container manufacturers. We also spoke with a Swiss firm running a similar return-to-restaurant model about working together.
Why we shelved it. A loop like this only works if every partner joins at once. Without an existing network, we couldn't get enough of them to the table on an idea alone, so we paused it midway.
What we learned. Trust and relationships come before the product. Platforms that depend on many partners need those partners on board early. We took that lesson into DhaShu.
The full story is in three videos on our videos page.