Bean to Cup Pros

January 20, 2015

It is early 2015 and we are in a world that largely accepts climate change as a reality. Countries all over the world are setting targets to reduce their carbon output or “footprint”.

This is harder than it seems. There is a lot of money backing the present industries that are supplying us with our energy and our day to day products.

Coffee is no exception! K-Cups have become the go-to choice for offices across North America. Green Mountain produced some 8.5 billion K-Cups in 2013 alone. These pods are largely non-recyclable and are filling our landfills with questionable plastics and chemicals, not to mention the emissions involved in the production of these pods! K-cups keep getting more and more popular because of their convenience. It certainly isn’t because of the quality of the cup of coffee. And nobody is saying a word.

Coffee Service companies are gravitating to the K-Cups as well, largely because it’s clean and easy to work with. K-Cup machines are inexpensive, and the only service involved is the delivery of the sealed K-Cups.  These companies tend to overcharge and under-service: a recipe for failure in any business.

Enter the “bean to cup” gourmet coffee machines. These machines grind beans for each individual cup of coffee. They make one beverage at a time, like a K-Cup machine, but the beverage is vastly superior to anything available in a pod! The beans are ground as the beverage is being made, so it is incredibly fresh. Whipped and steamed milk, chocolate and whatever other ingredients are requested are added and mixed automatically. The machines can be programmed to serve everything from a simple black coffee to latte, cappuccino, mochaccino, macchiato, hot chocolate and many more – and they’re all available at the touch of a button.

These machines are much better for the environment, too: they use bulk coffee beans, bulk milk, either whole or freeze dried, and powdered bulk hot chocolate. There is no individual packaging at all, using up resources and ending up our landfills! These machines also come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from the small counter top unit for your home kitchen, to the full industrial models that will make up to 250 cups of coffee before requiring a refill.

With governments more and more concerned about our waste and the emissions we are creating, it is only a matter of time before they take on the single-source packaging industry, especially the K-cup. This is the time to get into the business with a “bean to cup” coffee service. We charge appropriately and service the heck out of our clients, providing a vastly superior product, and doing our part to reduce our carbon footprint and the coffee industry’s impact on climate change.

Doug Leblanc
Manager
Social Bean Gourmet Coffee Co. Ltd.