It is a family business specializing in the design and manufacture of straws and food containers for professionals, established in Nièvre and founded in 1832 : Be Brothers launches The President’s Straw, a straw from, for the first time, of entirely natural origin and containing no type of plastic.
The President’s Straw (the president's straw) is an innovation which aims to respond to a double impasse : circumventing European regulations on single-use plastics, and the growing dissatisfaction of consumers with the alternatives currently offered. Since July 2021, the European SUP – Single Use Plastic directive (EU 2019/904) – bans single-use plastic straws, including those from biosourced resources as long as they have undergone chemical modification. However, straws presented as “vegetable” or “organic”, notably based on PBSA (biopolyester) from bagasse (sugar cane residue), and chemically transformed, continue to be produced and marketed on the European market. Their authorization is hypocrisy. It is based on the fact that these straws must be reused. But this is very rarely the case in catering., cafes or events. Used only once, without washing line, of reuse, recycling or composting, these straws end, the overwhelming majority incinerated or dispersed in the environment, just like plastic straws were before the 2021 legislation. These false ecological straws thus maintain widespread confusion among professionals and consumers alike and penalize solutions that truly comply with the spirit of the regulations..
An unambiguous industrial response
Developed by Allez Frères in exclusive partnership with the Finnish company Sulapac, this straw is a response with a somewhat teasing wink to the current American president who spoke, with the language we know, in favor of the return of plastic straws, car, in his eyes, no alternative proposed met consumer expectations. The President’s Straw propose, for the first time, a truly single-use straw, without plastic or chemically modified polymers, guaranteeing real comfort of use for consumers. Composed of ingredients exclusively of natural origin, The President Straw’s falls within the European regulatory framework. This straw will be available in the first half of 2026. Initially for hotels, bars and restaurants before meeting the needs of the dairy drinks and fruit juice industry in briks.
Restoring credibility to the ecological transition
Avec The President’s Straw, Be Brothers and Sulapac defend an ecological transition based on sincere industrial solutions. The objective is not to make disposable things green, but to propose a coherent alternative, capable of restoring the confidence of professionals and consumers. For Frédéric Be, president of Be Brothers, “The French do not want an ecological symbol but a product that works, manufactured locally and complies with regulations”. Et pour Joonas Helenius, PDG de Sulapac, “thanks to the material innovation of Sulapac and the know-how of Allez Frères, the President’s Straw will once again offer a pleasant tasting experience while ensuring regulatory compliance and consumer safety.”.
