Eco-friendly capsules set to rise from New Zealand

Two young New Zealanders, Jayden Klinac,24, and Josh Cole, 22, formed their own business last year and are already well on their way to taking on the giants of the capsule market.

Their unique selling point is that their capsules are biodegradable, something which sets them apart from their multinational rivals and have won them numerous friends who share their green ideas.

After starting their company, Honest Coffee Company, in November, the forward-thinking duo have recently procured exclusive distribution rights that will see their mini-containers share shelf space with officially licensed products.

The capsule market is a sore point within the coffee industry. On one hand the machines such as Nestle’s Nespresso and Keurig Green Mountain’s K-Cup are applauded for their convenience and the range of drink varieties available for them, yet on the other their pods aren’t recyclable due to their plastic and aluminium components and have a sizeable environmental footprint. These eco-capsules could well shake up the market, though it is worth mentioning that they won’t contain licenced coffees from Keurig’s partners such as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and the Ghiradelli Chocolate Company.

“There was a growing group of people who loved the idea of [capsule coffee] but refused to get the machine because of its impact on the environment,” explains Mr Klinac, a recent graduate from Dunedin’s University of Otago.

“We wanted to start educating people about the waste and let them know there is an option out there…and you don’t need to feel bad throwing these away, you can even put them straight into your worm farm” – if you have one that is.

Klinac and Cole began working together before they came across Jean-Paul Gaillard, who founded the Ethical Coffee Company a few years ago, and the French business helped them out. As luck would have it, Mr Gaillard was once the Nespresso’s chief before leaving in order to make a greener, more sustainable product.

A spokesperson for Nespresso was quick to mention that they do their utmost to recycle their waste pods and that customers could return them to certain areas – a practice which has been ongoing for a while now. “We take sustainability and recycling very seriously,” Guillaume Chesneua said.

“[We] have put in place global and local policies and systems to ensure the proper disposal of used capsules.

photo:By Dee. CC-BY-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons