Single-use plastic is one of the worst environmental ills, and Zume is eager to save it. The company is working to create a sustainable, viable and economical alternative to many of the plastics we currently use.

Single-use plastic is one of the worst environmental ills, and Zume is eager to save it. The company is working to create a sustainable, viable and economical alternative to many of the plastics we currently use.
 

Zume started out as a company creating pizza-making robots with some pretty impressive robotic arms for making pizza, and when its co-founder Julia Collins left to make climate-friendly food, the entire company eventually changed its focus.
 

However, the company's climate-focused culture doesn't appear to have gone with Collins, and since its 2019 acquisition of Pivot, Zume has made a name for itself in developing plant-based alternatives to plastics. Now, the company is declaring war on plastics through aggressive scaling moves and a new partnership with industry giant ABB. The company recently signed a deal with ABB to provide an army of robots to help it accomplish its tasks, although neither Zume nor ABB is in a hurry to disclose the financial details of the deal.
 

ABB will provide robotic cells that will enable Zume to produce sustainable packaging globally, helping reduce reliance on single-use plastics. ABB will consolidate and install more than 1,000 Molded Fiber Manufacturing Cells (MFCs), including up to 2,000 ABB robots, at Zume's global customer sites over the next five years, automatically producing Zume's sustainable packaging, making it a single-use plastic A viable and economical alternative.