Cups, and Standing Out

A paper cup is the only part of the stall the customer carries away through the market, so it is advertising as well as packaging. I want the drink to stand out, at a cost people will still pay. The choices are priced below, from a plain white cup to a custom-printed one, ending with what looks like the best value: a kraft cup, a rubber stamp and a wooden honey dipper. What a cup costs inside each drink is on The Numbers, and the drinks themselves on The Drinks.

Prices are food-service case prices read on 2 October 2026.

What a plain cup costs

Hot cups, each:

Cup	8 oz	12 oz	16 oz
White single wall	3.8¢	4.6¢	5.3¢
Kraft single wall		6.5¢	6.8¢
White double wall (no sleeve needed)	8.3¢	10.2¢	12.3¢
Ripple double wall, kraft or white	9.3¢	11.9¢	16.5¢
Compostable single wall, kraft or white	6.3¢	7.7¢	8.9¢
Compostable ripple double wall, kraft	13.7¢	17.0¢	20.5¢

Lids are 3¢, or 6¢ to 8¢ compostable. A kraft sleeve is 3.5¢.

Cold cups, each: clear plastic (PET) 12 oz 5.4¢, 16 oz 5.8¢, flat lid 3.3¢. Clear compostable (PLA) 12 oz 8.7¢, 16 oz 9.9¢, lid 5.1¢.

What a complete cup costs:

Set	Cost
12 oz white cup, lid, sleeve	11¢
12 oz ripple double-wall cup, lid	15¢
12 oz compostable cup, compostable lid, sleeve	19¢
16 oz clear cold cup and lid	9¢
16 oz clear compostable cold cup and lid	15¢

On a $4 drink the difference between the cheapest set and the compostable set is eight cents, 2% of the price; the stamped kraft set recommended below is two cents more than the cheapest. The cup is not where the money is saved.

What “compostable” buys. A compostable cup is compostable in an industrial composting facility. Most small towns in central Michigan have no curbside collection for it, so most of these cups go to landfill like the rest; an organics hauler does collect certified compostables around Lansing and Mt. Pleasant (Compostable, PFAS and Waste). Certification to ASTM D6400 or by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) is what makes the word honest, the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides govern how it may be used on a sign, and moulded-fibre lids and bowls raise a separate question about PFAS (“forever chemicals”) — lined paper cups, tested, came up clean. All three are on Compostable, PFAS and Waste. A plain paper cup and an honest sign may be the better claim.

Foam. A standard foam cup is cheap and keeps coffee hot, and Michigan law bars local governments from banning it. It also says “gas station” more clearly than any other object on the table. It has no place at a stall that sells honey from its own hives.

Ways to make the cup the stall’s own

Method	Cost per cup	Minimum	Notes
Rubber stamp on a kraft cup	about 1¢ over 5,000 cups (a $36 stamp and a $13.50 pad)	one stamp	Hand-made look; each cup slightly different
Blank kraft sleeve, stamped	6¢ for the sleeve	a case of 1,800	The stamp goes on the sleeve, not the cup
Custom-printed sleeve	30¢ to 45¢	500	Dearer than printing the cup
Vinyl sticker	about 23¢ at 1,000		Also sells as a sticker
Custom-printed cup, full colour	29¢ at 1,000; 24¢ at 5,000	1,000; three weeks	About 20¢ more than a plain cup
Custom-printed compostable double-wall	17¢	50,000 cups, four months	Not a stall-sized order

A stamp is the clear first choice. It costs fifty dollars once, it works on cups, sleeves, bags and napkins, and it suits a small maker. Rubber-stamp sellers publish nothing on whether ink on the outside of a cup raises a food-contact question; a water-based pad ink, stamped low on the cup and left to dry, is the cautious way. The same stamp marks the bags (Bags and Labels). A stamp of the mark is the cheapest brand there is; the rest of the look, on a budget, is on Branding, Naming and Trademarks.

A custom-printed cup makes sense when the stall is using a thousand cups a month and the design is settled. That is a decision for after the business has a final name and mark.

Beyond paper

A deposit jar. A few cafés serve in a mason jar with a $1 or $2 deposit, refunded or discounted on return. It is the most memorable cup possible and it suits honey and jam. The obstacle is washing. Michigan’s minimum for washing anything at a stall is three basins of hot potable water big enough to submerge the item (the rules page). Returned jars would have to go home dirty in a closed bin and come back clean from a licensed kitchen. That makes it a programme for the shop. Whether a stall may refill a customer’s own cup is not addressed in MDARD’s published guidance; it is a question for the health department.

An edible cup. Wafer cups exist. They hold a hot drink for about 40 minutes up to 185 °F and cost $2.30 to $2.45 each at retail. As a general cup that is the price of the coffee. As the cup for one small special, a 4 oz egg coffee say, it is a talking point that is priced into the drink.

A cup people buy. A branded enamel mug or insulated tumbler sold at the stall, with 50 cents off every refill in it. No study has measured how well refill discounts work, and washing is the customer’s job, so it needs no sink. It is merchandise that also solves the cup, and it is the mug in the gift baskets.

What makes a drink stand out besides the cup

These cost little and are within what a stall can do:

• A wooden honey dipper in the cup (Honey in Coffee). A 6½-inch wooden dipper costs $1.19 in single quantities, less by the case. In a honey coffee, with a line of honey on it, it is the garnish nobody else has, and the customer takes it home. Priced into a $5 drink it is the most visible dollar on the table.
• A clear cup for cold drinks. Coffee over ice, with condensed milk still swirling, sells the next one down the line (Iced Coffee and Ice).
• The roast date and the coffee’s name written on the cup. A marker and five seconds. It tells the customer which bag to buy.
• Honey from a labelled bottle, squeezed in front of the customer, and the jar of the same honey beside the till.
• A paper tag on a string around the cup or bag with the coffee’s name and three flavor words.
• The phin on the counter, dripping. A method people have not seen is better signage than a sign.

Which cup for which drink

Three sizes cover the menu, which keeps the stock to three sleeves (lid fit and sleeves for safety are on Serving Hot Drinks Safely):

Cup	Drinks
4 oz hot cup	Samples; egg coffee, if it is ever allowed
12 oz hot cup, lid and sleeve	House coffee, pour-over, French press, the honey drinks
16 oz clear cold cup and flat lid	Cà phê sữa đá (kah fay shoo-uh dah · [kaː˨˩ fej˧˧ ʂɨə˨˩˦ ʔɗaː˦˥]), iced coffee

A cà phê sữa đá is stirred before it is handed over, so it can go out with a flat lid and a straw, or with a strawless sip lid that saves the straw and lets the layers be seen until the first sip. The cold-cup lids priced above are flat lids.

A sensible start

Item	Choice	Cost per drink
Hot cup	12 oz kraft single wall, stamped	6.5¢
Lid	Standard travel lid	3¢
Sleeve	Kraft, stamped	3.5¢
Cold cup	16 oz clear compostable, with lid	15¢
Sample cup (Sampling)	4 oz compostable hot cup	4¢
Honey dipper, in honey drinks only	Wooden, 6½ inch	about $1

That is about 13 cents for a hot drink and 15 cents for a cold one, with the stall’s mark on every cup, for an outlay of fifty dollars in stamps.

Sources

• WebstaurantStore listings for hot cups, lids, cold cups, sleeves and honey dippers, read 2 October 2026.
• Your Brand Cafe (custom 12 oz cups); Good Start Packaging (custom compostable double-wall cups).
• Espresso Parts (rubber stamps), Sticker Mule (stickers) and a sleeve printer’s price list, read as search summaries.
• Cupffee and Good-Edi edible cups, as reported by The Spoon and the makers’ US sites.
• Fresh Cup and a Colorado Springs newspaper on deposit jars.
• MCL 445.592 (Michigan’s preemption of local rules on containers); MDARD temporary food establishment guidance on warewashing.