In 2023, the global coffee market was worth just under USD $134 billion and set to grow at a CAGR of over 6% over the next eight years, reaching USD $237 billion by 2032.
But in an uncertain economic landscape, more coffee consumers around the world have been searching for a way to enjoy their favourite drink at home – coffee machine sales are booming, and customers are stepping away from the coffee shop and bringing the coffee-making ritual into their own kitchens.
One convenient at-home coffee solution comes in the form of a small, sometimes biodegradable (sometimes not) capsules known as coffee pods. But the pod market has been criticised for its contribution to post-consumer waste; so the future of coffee pods is unclear.
Coffee lovers want their morning caffeine hit made with the aroma of freshly ground, quality coffee. And it’s not just about the taste or the caffeine: many coffee drinkers enjoy a sense of ritual around the process of buying or making coffee that adds a glimmer of joy to their day.
For coffee enthusiasts with the cash to spare, home barista set ups are a great option. They grind coffee beans and have a steam wand – so you can whip up a latte, flat white, or a cappuccino without having to step outside your house. But quality barista coffee setups are expensive – with high-end models costing thousands of dollars.
Then there are coffee pod machines.
Pre-pandemic, coffee pod machines were growing slowly in popularity. But when lockdowns around the world meant that everyone had to stay indoors, coffee drinkers wanted an easy and affordable alternative to their barista-made beverages. And pod machines were exactly that: you put in your pod, press a button, and the machine does the rest.
But as the global coffee pod machine market skyrocketed to USD $1609.7 million in 2021, it wasn’t long before colourful coffee pods came under criticism – because when consumers had finished with them, they headed straight for landfill. According to Green Match, coffee capsules are responsible for 576,000 metric tons of global waste per year.
It turns out that from some angles, coffee pod coffee is actually better for the environment than any other method of making coffee. To understand that, it’s important to understand the lifecycle of coffee.
To get a coffee bean to the point it’s ready to be made into a coffee drink, it has to go through multiple steps. From growing and producing each coffee bean to roasting, transporting, packaging, then transforming those beans into cups of coffee (and then washing or recycling those cups afterwards – the carbon footprint of a coffee shop coffee is significant.
But the less packaging used, the less impact each cup of coffee has on the environment, right?
One study compared the carbon footprint of making a 280 millilitre cup of coffee in four different ways:
And the study found that filter coffee is more harmful to the environment than coffee pods. Although filter coffee uses less packaging than pods, it requires more ground coffee, water and uses more electricity to heat per cup. It’s an important reminder to look at the whole picture when we’re assessing the environmental impact of a product – and not just look at the packaging.
When they first came to market, coffee pods were criticised for their single-use lifespan. There are three types of pod: plastic (usually non-recyclable), aluminium (mostly recyclable) and cornstarch (compostable).
As coffee pod machines rise in popularity, so does demand for purchasing pods – and subsequently, the numbers of pods that are discarded will also reach new highs. And it’s on pod producers to make sure they’re doing their part to make their packaging as sustainable as possible.
We’ve spotted global retailers and small-scale businesses upcycling coffee pods in innovative ways, including:
The market for home coffee machines and coffee pods continues to grow. It’s driven by the rise in working from home, as well as an increased cost of living in many regions around the world which is causing consumers to reevaluate their everyday spending and cut down on luxuries – including daily visits to the coffee shop.
An at-home coffee machine increases convenience and offers a lower cost-per-cup than if you were to buy the same coffee from a coffee shop. In a bid to stay competitive, even established high street coffee retailers, including Starbucks, have launched their own lines of coffee pods for at-home consumption.
For coffee connoisseurs, the at-home coffee pod lifestyle is unlikely to hit the mark. Although coffee pods come in a wide variety of taste blends, they don’t offer the same blend complexity as freshly ground coffee beans; and pod machine coffee can’t compete with the subtlety and texture of a fresh, professional brew. So the future of the coffee market looks varied: there will be pods, but those pods will have to compete with a range of alternative coffee options in a market of increasingly educated, coffee-savvy consumers.
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