Many of us in the traditional coffee industry have been hit hard by shifts in our market. Coffee shops all over the world who recently were thriving hubs that attracted both takeaway and sit down customers, are now struggling to bring their customers back.
The amount of coffee being consumed has not dropped off, the way it is being purchased and prepared has changed dramatically.
Pressure is on multi-touch items like shared coffee pots and social distancing is also putting pressure on communal spaces like coffee shops too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged employers and retailers to block off shared spaces and “replace high-touch communal items, such as coffee pots, water coolers, and bulk snacks, with alternatives such as prepackaged, single-serving items.”
The fact is that both commercial and private consumers are buying more single-serve pods than ever before.
This shift has made life for many roasters and coffee shops difficult for two main reasons. Firstly pollution, we care about the environment and hate pollution! We see items like single use gloves and masks lying around all over the place and definitely don’t want to add to the massive stream of single-serve pods heading to landfills. Secondly, crazy high minimums, if we have done any research and spoken to co-packers we know that their minimum orders of 5-10k are higher than most of us are able to digest.
Single Serve Co has a solution that addresses both these real concerns. Firstly, our k-cups are 100% compostable at an industrial composting facility. “Ah, so that's the catch!” you may say, and you would be right if we never offered each or our customers our Responsible Compostable Solution. RCS is essentially a self addressed compostable envelope, added to each box of k-cups we produce that our customers fill with their used k-cups and mail back to us. We take these envelopes to one of our industrial composting partner facilities where they are composted into plant food. Secondly, we specialize in low-minimum solutions…...technically, our minimum order is one single k-cup!
We are not going to lay down to this pandemic. We are standing up and adapting! Contact us if you would like to explore ways we can stand up together!
*Our compostable pods are compatible with Keurig machine k-cups. However we have no association with Keurig.