Auum
In January 2019, Thomas Munoz, Maxime Prieto, Mathieu Bourhis, Paul Saunal and Clément Houllier, five Supratec employees, decided to devote themselves to putting an end to the dominance of disposable cups and officially launched their startup, auum, with the goal of creating a revolutionary machine that cleans glasses and completely changes the traditional patterns of drinking.
The use of this machine follows a well-defined set of specifications:
- For cleaning to be as easy to perform as throwing a cup in the bin
- Having the lowest possible carbon footprint
- Being very quick and convenient to use, especially for businesses where time is of the essence
- Being even more economical than disposable cups
Capitalising on their know-how in steam cleaning machines acquired while working at Supratec, a French company in the hardware and steaming industry, they created a machine that uses only 2cl of water and 4 Wh and it takes only 10 seconds to clean, disinfect and dry a glass.
Compared to disposable cups, using the auum machine and cups has a 27 times lower energy footprint, 43 times smaller carbon footprint and has a 2.5 times lower water footprint.
The machine is rented out at €180/month for around 100 employees, with the fee including special auum glasses (which can be personalised) and maintenance. The business has been operating since January 28, 2021 and estimates to have avoided over 500,000 disposable cups since.
