While there are many good things about single serve coffee, there is one that is truly hard to swallow. It’s what to do with the cups and pods when you’ve finished.
Bob Hansen, of KNSD, reports on some of the problems that these little capsules can cause.
I think it is interesting that while Keurig is working on a solution no one has yet offered some type of solution even if it is temporary. What do you think? Should more places offer to collect items like this? Things that are recyclable but just need to be separated? What if you could take them to the gas station or the local fast food restaurant?
Oliver Strand wrote an interesting article in Tuesday’s New York Times, where he is describing how the coffee in your single-serve coffee maker costs more per pound than conventional coffees. You may know that you spend $15 on the package of 16 Nespresso pods or K-Cups – that’s easy to equate into a cost per cup. Just like walking into a coffee shop you know that you’ll pay $4.95 for that cup of java. Neither of these places is telling the cost per pound. But that’s the way you buy it at the grocery store – each package of coffee works out to so much per pound. Grocery store coffee doesn’t typically tell you how many cups you’ll get out of the package because it varies on how much you put in, and how much extra coffee you brew each day that gets tossed out. So by their nature they aren’t exactly equal comparisons. And part of the draw of single serving coffee makers is their convenience – you know how you make exactly 1 cup of this variety without having to purchase and entire pound. Much akin to the convenience of purchasing a pound of coffee at the grocery store instead of the 50-pound package at a wholesale club since it has so much better a price!
Another interesting bit that Oliver brings out in his article is how it appears to be a generational shift that is driving the coffee market towards single serving. Single serving is now the second most popular way to brew coffee in the US, behind drip makers. And to further accentuate the pricing difference, single serving coffee represents less than 10% of the coffee consumption but accounts for about 25% of its costs.
How you like to make and drink your coffee is your decision, really, and as you buy the equipment and the supplies its a decision that you have to be happy with. If you are going the single serve coffee maker route, then you are here because you want the convenience and variety. But regardless, when you buy the coffee you are going to drink you have to buy it knowing that you are “ok” with that cost per serving of coffee. If you view it (as many do) as under $1 for prepared coffee and that they are saving so much off the coffee shop prices, then be happy with that decision. If you are solely in it for the lowest cost cup of coffee, then grind your own beans from the large bags from the wholesale clubs. Be happy with your choice and enjoy your coffee!
Oliver leaves us and ends the article, tantalizing, as he details rumors that there may be price wars on the horizon!
According to a news story in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, Sara Lee has agreed to purchase the rights to Senseo from Philips Electronics. In this $220 million deal, Sara Lee now owns 100% of the Senseo brand, instead of the 50% it held before. Philips will continue (at least until 2020) to be the exclusive manufacturer of the Senseo brewers and Sara Lee will produce the coffee and tea pods.
As recently discussed, the Senseo pods garner high marks for the ability to easily recycle them – they are coffee grounds and a filter. Senseo must, however, compete with the highly popular Keurig (dominating the single-serve market) as well as Tassimo and traditional brewing solutions.
Telling, even more, is that Google AdSense ad in this story for Tassimo! So while competition is admittedly steep for Senseo, Sara Lee does look to continue to expand into different coffee/tea market segments. Sara Lee also recently acquired CoffeeCompany, a Dutch Coffee House chain with over 60 cafes in the Netherlands.
So – your picking a single-serving brewer because it makes sense for you? What is the overriding factor? Environmentally friendly waste or variety of selection and freshness of product? And if you want variety and freshness how far out of your way would you go to recycle the coffee pods?
ACcording to a story yesterday in the Tidewater (VA) News, Stephen Cowles reports that Green Mountain Roasters, the parent company of Keurig – a popular single serving coffee maker, is currently hiring 45 people and will add an additional 20 within the month.
If working at a place that helps you and everyone else get a morning fix of coffee is appealing, then check out their openings! www.gmcr.com/careers.html
Gov. Bob McDonnell in October announced that Green Mountain Coffee Roasters would establish a production and distribution site at the Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park on Route 460. The company plans to employ 800 who will be paid an average of $40,000 a year.
Katie Gilroy, manager of corporate communications, said Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is currently hiring for 45 positions and plans to add an additional 20 over the next month.
“Given we’re still in the process, we can’t comment on exactly what positions have in fact been hired at this time, however, we are hiring for a variety of manufacturing positions including engineering, maintenance, safety and quality assurance, as well as some general IT and HR positions,” Gilroy said.
There will be additional openings for procurement, scheduling, distribution, operations and maintenance.
Green Mount Coffee Roasters makes single-serve portion packets for its Keurig brewing system. Further, the company would take care of the grinding, roasting and packing locally.
Once operational, the plant is expected to be open 20 to 24 hours a day. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the country will be served.
Is working for a place like Keurig your dream job?
Came across an interesting letter to the editor in The Daytona Beach News-Journal today. Its from Penelope and she writes in to them in response to an earlier article they ran about Single-Serve coffee machines and the environment.
Penelope does make a lot of sense with her comments, and echos the feelings of probably lots of coffee drinkers about single-serving coffee. It does seem wasteful. Then you have the argument about wasted pots of coffee and the energy needed to keep the coffee warm, but we aren’t going to address that angle right now.
She talks about the Senseo Pods, and how these pods are made to be biodegradable. I was in Wal-Mart tonight, scouting the different kinds of single-serve coffee they stock and did notice that some Sara Lee Senseo Coffee Pods were being sold. The package touted that the pods could be used in any single serving coffee machine. I didn’t think about it too much at that moment, but now I am. I’m curious about this!
I do see some products out there, namely this Perfect Pod Holster “as seen on tv” (lol). It is an adapter for Keurig Machines that lets you insert a pod into the reusable plastic shell and put it into your Keurig and brew a single cup of coffee and then toss just the pod. Novel concept. At the moment I’m using the Ekobrew reusable to see how well that works and honestly I’ve brewed more cups in it than I have prepackaged K-Cups.
The big thing about the K-Cups is that they are packaged well, plastic and aluminum and paper filters. It makes sure that you get a fresh cup of coffee. But the downside to that is that it isn’t extremely environmentally friendly. Green Mountain Coffee, to their credit, is working on both ways to recycle their K-Cups as well as how to make them out of other materials. More, we are sure, to come on that in the future.
Excellent letter Penelope! It is a thought that many of us have so you are not alone. It’s just that at that time of the morning, the primary concern seems to be getting coffee inside you and not so much about what to do with the leftovers. Anyone else have thoughts on reusable K-Cups or recycling them?
Noticed an article today on Seeking Alpha, it is an investing publication, but had an interesting comment about Starbucks and Keurig K-Cups that I thought you guys would be interested in.
While you may not care too much what their earnings per share is, or what increases in sales are expected, you probably care more about the quality of the coffee. The good point is that while “business” goes on, Starbucks remembers that it is not only serving a quality product, but also customers with convenience, as well as a status symbol.
Fortunately for investors, selling coffee is not just what Starbucks does. One can buy coffee almost anywhere, but Starbucks has become the place to buy coffee. Carrying around a cup of coffee with its logo on it says something about who you are. It says you are cool and in the know, that you appreciate the finer things in life. Along with each cup of coffee, Starbucks is selling an image that is in demand.
The New Year will also see the introduction of Starbucks K-cups in stores, grocers and online. A K-Cup is a single serve pack used with a Keurig Single Cup Brewing System marketed by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Starbucks is predicting the K-Cup “will grow to be a greater than a $1 billion business over time.”
I take several things from these statements.
Starbucks wants to continue to provide you with quality, quick and easy coffee in the way that is most convenient to you.
K-Cups, and K-Cup machines will be around for a while to come – they aren’t a passing fad.
How do you feel about your Keurig or other Single-Serving coffee machine investment – has it made your life easier?
When your making your morning coffee have you ever wondered if there is a better alternative than tossing your used K-Cup out? Turns out others think so, too.
The Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota is working on just that with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Wynntrust, LLC.
Piloting at the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters with energy solutions company Wynntryst L.L.C. in Vermont, the center’s process uses waste stream – which includes coffee residues, plastic packaging, paper, cloth or burlap and plastic cups – to produce biogas.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a Wynntryst client, distributes coffee products to food and beverage companies all over the world, including Starbucks and McDonald’s.
“The first step of the project is to demonstrate that we can gasify the complex mixture of waste and produce clean synthetic gas, or syngas, by utilizing the E.E.R.C.’s novel advanced fixed-bed gasifier system on the biomass-residue mixture,” said project manager and research scientist Nikhil Patel.
Recycling is common for lots of things, but soon it will be for your used K-Cups as well.
The syngas will then either be used in an internal combustion engine to produce electricity and heat, or be converted to high-value biofuels or chemicals. The pilot-scale tests will evaluate the quality of syngas that can be produced from the Green Mountain waste.
What do you do with your used K-Cups? Do you use them twice? Let us know, and be sure to check out the original story here on ecoseed.
“as seen on tv” (lol). It is an adapter for Keurig Machines that lets you insert a pod into the reusable plastic shell and put it into your Keurig and brew a single cup of coffee and then toss just the pod. Novel concept. At the moment I’m using the Ekobrew reusable to see how well that works and honestly I’ve brewed more cups in it than I have prepackaged K-Cups.