2025 Year in Review
Milestones That Moved Us Forward
As 2025 comes to a close, we are taking a moment to reflect on the progress made through everyday choices, real world adoption, and growing community support. This year marked an important chapter for Corn Next as our materials reached more people, more moments, and more conversations around reducing reliance on single use plastic.
Replacing Single Use Plastic in Real Life
Throughout 2025, Corn Next products were used in place of traditional plastic, resulting in the replacement of 1,325,250 single use plastic straws. By weight, this represents approximately 0.70 metric tons of single use plastic reduced. This plastic was never produced, used, or discarded.
Based on U.S. waste pathways, this progress helped keep over 1.3 million plastic straws out of landfill pathways, where most single use plastics typically end up.
Reducing Risk to Oceans and Waterways
Not all plastic waste remains contained. Using conservative U.S. leakage estimates, replacing these plastic straws also helped prevent tens of thousands of plastic straws from potentially leaking into oceans and waterways over time. Each replacement reduced the chance of plastic entering natural environments through wind, runoff, or improper disposal.
Climate Impact Beyond Waste
Plastic production is energy intensive. By avoiding the production of fossil based plastic straws altogether, Corn Next’s 2025 usage represents an estimated 1.2 metric tons of carbon emissions avoided from plastic production alone. This impact reflects emissions that never occurred because plastic was not made in the first place.
Impact Before Scale
Even before official large scale launch, Corn Next’s impact had already begun.
In 2025, prior to national rollout and mass distribution, Corn Next products replaced 1,325,250 single use plastic straws through early adoption, pilot use, and partners willing to try a better material alternative.
What this means in real terms
This early momentum represents approximately:
~0.7 metric tons of plastic waste avoided
Over 1.3 million plastic straws kept out of landfill pathways
Tens of thousands of straws prevented from potentially entering oceans and waterways
~1.2 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions avoided from plastic production
This progress was achieved without mass commercialization, without national retail rollouts, and without marketing driven volume. It came from real use in real settings, supported by partners aligned with better material choices.
Growing Awareness Through Media, Partnerships, and Events
Beyond environmental impact, 2025 was also a year of increased visibility and engagement. Corn Next reached new audiences through national media coverage, helping bring conversations about material alternatives and plastic reduction into everyday spaces.
This year included features across major media outlets such as NBC, Food and Wine, Delish, and Real Simple. Corn Next also partnered with VeganCuts, introducing our straws to conscious consumers through curated product experiences.
In addition, Corn Next straws were used at large scale real world events, including the U.S. Flag Football World Championship, demonstrating that better materials can perform in high volume, fast paced environments.
Community Engagement and Plastic Free July
Community connection remained at the heart of 2025. Through our Plastic Free July campaign, we engaged our audience with education, storytelling, and practical swaps that highlighted how small changes can reduce reliance on single use plastic over time.
From large scale events to everyday moments, this year showed what better materials can do when they are chosen consistently.
Looking Ahead
Each milestone reached in 2025 reflects steady momentum built through real use, real partnerships, and collective choice.
As Corn Next moves into 2026, our products, including straws, powder scoops, and cutlery, will begin scaling across foodservice, institutional, and consumer channels. At scale, impact is no longer incremental. It multiplies.
This is why we believe the future of materials is not about better plastics, but about reconnecting materials with natural cycles. Materials designed to perform in daily life and designed to return responsibly.
From the earth.
For daily life.
Back to the earth.
Thank you for being part of the Corn Next journey.
