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A K-Cup compatible compostable capsule made with NatureWorks’ Ingeo biopolymer.
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Demand for Nespresso-compatible capsules and compostable capsules continues to grow rapidly.
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Flavio Di Marcotullio, global industry manager, NatureWorks: “there is tremen-dous interest in compostable capsules”.
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Panzani Nicola, chief executive offcer, IMA Coffee Petroncini.
The fast pace of growth in the market for capsule coffee shows little sign of slowing down, with demand continuing to grow, continued emphasis on new product development, multifaceted segmentation, and diversification into new materials.
And as delegates at AMI’s Single Serve Virtual Summit in March 2021 heard, there is ever-greater emphasis on research and development for the capsule market, particularly new materials and more environmentally friendly capsules, some of which – it is claimed – are fully compostable at home. There is also an ever-growing number of products that are ‘compatible’ with leading brands names.
According to analysis by AMI, compatibles’ share of the market – which grew quickly since 2012 when some of Nestlé’s Nespresso patents began to expire – will continue to grow significantly. Martyna Fong, AMI head of consulting told the virtual conference that in 2020, 71 billion capsules were filled with Europe accounting for 70% of supply and figures she showed attendees indicate that the direction of travel of the capsule market is toward continued growth.
From around 20 billion capsules filled globally in 2012, AMI projections show continued growth to around 80 billion by 2025, and far from tamping down on this fast pace of growth, the Covid-19 pandemic actually led to a spike in demand as a result of increased home consumption during lockdowns.
Although new entrants continue to enter the capsules market, consolidation is also taking place, Fong explained. The leadership position in the market held by Nestlé and JAB firmed up, and there is a ‘system rationalization’ going on that has seen nearly all growth in the market coming from capsules intended for three market-leading systems: Nespresso, K-cup, and Dolce Gusto.
One of the most notable changes taking place is that manufacturers of Nespresso compatibles have moved quickly into aluminum capsules, ironically at the same time that manufacturers focus ever-greater attention on compostable capsules and on the ‘holy grail’ of capsules that are truly compostable, at home, not just in specialized industrial composting facilities.
Of the top capsule systems by volume in 2020, Fong told delegates – which include Nespresso at number one followed by Keurig K-cup, Nescafe Dulce Gusto, Tassimo, Nespresso Professional, Cafitaly/Cafissimo, A Modo Mio, Espresso Point, Delizio/Cremesso, and Lavazza Blue – only JDE’s (JAB’s) Tassimo is not served by a compatible capsule. And of the total market by volume in 2020, 34% is compatibles and 66% original.
In 2020, Alupak with its aluminum-type Nespresso capsules remained in top place as the leading supplier of capsules, followed by Berry Global (Dolce Gusto, Tassimo, and other proprietary and compatible capsules using plastics and bio-resins); Grupo Phoenix (K-cup, conventional plastics); Aluflexpack (Nespresso compatible (JDE), aluminum); Bisio Progetti (Nespresso and Dolce Gusto compatible, conventional plastics/bio-resins); Printpack (K-cup compatible, conventional plastics); Datwyler (Nespresso compatible, aluminum); Greiner Packaging (Dulce Gusto, conventional plastics); and Säntis Packaging (proprietary and compatible, conventional plastics and bio-resins).
As if to confirm AMI’s analysis of the market and the fast pace of growth it anticipates will continue, Bas de Vet, founder and chief capsule officer of Cappac told the virtual summit that the company, already capable of producing 300 million capsules per year, has embarked on an expansion plant that will see it ramp up production to 1 billion capsules per annum by this September. Producing Nespresso-compatible capsules for the private label segment of the market, the company’s new facility in the Netherlands makes use of IMA Coffee filling and packaging machines and a high level of automation and robotization. A spokesperson for the company said, “demand is growing enormously, and we are well prepared for increased demand.”
Although only accounting for around 5% of the market by weight of material used, with 79% still conventional plastics and 16% aluminum, the market for bioplastics and compostable materials is growing rapidly and new environmentally friendly capsules were launched at the event.
Others that are now well known such as NatureWorks’ Ingeo polylactic acid (PLA), used by food packaging producer Flo in its ‘Gea’ industrially compostable coffee capsules and Terracaps’ ‘CO2 neutral’ industrially compostable capsules, were described in presentations.
Shortly after the event, NatureWorks and IMA Coffee announced that they had entered into a strategic partnership to address the market for compostable K-Cups coffee capsules in North America. The agreement brings together NatureWorks’ expertise with compostable materials, formulations, and processing technology with IMA’s competence and application-specific know-how in coffee handling, processing, and packaging.
“Compostable capsules create the opportunity to not only address consumer concerns and divert packaging away from landfills, but perhaps more importantly, to recover used coffee grounds, enabling their processing at a compost facility where they deliver valuable nutrients to the final compost,” the partners said.
“We have seen tremendous interest in compostable capsules,” said Flavio Di Marcotullio, global industry manager NatureWorks. “Brand owners and roasters are responding to consumer demands for more sustainable packaging and to circular economy directives that specify compostable packaging as a key enabler of recovering food waste for compost. To continue supporting this growth, we saw an opportunity to partner with IMA.”
“In 2019 IMA launched ‘IMA NoP,’ our ‘no plastics program’,” said Nicola Panzani, chief executive officer, IMA Coffee Petroncini. “NoP means we promote eco-friendly plastic substitutes for the packages manufactured on IMA machines. IMA has also established an ‘Open Lab’ where material technologists develop and test compostable and recyclable materials.”
Widespread adoption of truly home-compostable capsules would be a game-changer for a segment of the industry that has had a bad press from environmentalists for years and manufacturers have been working hard to develop capsules that can be composted by consumers.
As briefly highlighted by STiR earlier this year, Luxembourg-based Capsul’in Pro claims that its Zero Impact Nespresso-compatible capsule is the first of its kind to be 100% biobased and certified home compostable. Laurent Lombart, managing director, Capsul’in Pro told the virtual summit that the completely plant-based product – which uses only biodegradable and bio-sourced polymer and cellulose – does not contain materials derived from fossil fuels and that after use, it can be put in a home compost bin or collected with organic waste. It is, he told delegates, entirely compostable, at home, in 26 weeks.
Also bringing a new home-compostable product to the AMI virtual summit was Coda Group, whose head of sales and marketing Simon Girdlestone told delegates about what the company claims, “is the world’s first truly sustainable coffee capsule.”
The material used in Coda Group’s capsule, Solinatra, is another type of biomaterial, in this case made from agricultural by-products, and is designed to be biodegradable in garden soil. The company currently has eight patents in place covering a method of making the material from waste products and says it can be injection molded using existing tooling. The material is currently being tested at Sacmi in Italy and at Husky in Luxembourg in readiness to scale-up production to around three billion capsules per annum. The company has also embarked on the development of what Girdlestone described as a “truly sustainable K-cup capsule,” and is also developing its own lidding material for coffee capsules.
Girdlestone told the virtual summit that Solinatra behaves and feels like conventional plastic and can be injection molded. He said it actually exceeds current certification requirements for compostability and will degrade in a garden. The speed at which it totally biodegrades depends on temperature and bacterial activity. The company is also working on a full life cycle analysis of the material to determine its carbon footprint compared with other materials and will publish it in due course. To substantiate its claims about home compostability, the company tested Nespresso-compatible Solinatra capsules with a 70 micro wall section in normal garden soil. Girdlestone said the capsules degraded almost entirely in 42 days and the remains of the capsules are very fragile, and crumble into powered very easily.
Fast growth in the capsules segment is also driving innovation in packaging machines, as Sarong director of sales and market Stefano Nanni, and IMA’s Panzani, told the virtual summit. In Sarong’s recently launched Magneta filling machines, which are available in 400, 800, and 1,000 capsules-per-minute versions, Sarong replaced belt or chain conveyors of the type that are usually used to transport capsules through a machine with independently operating ‘magnetic shuttles’ powered by a linear motor.
Nanni explained that adopting this solution enables the company to overcome limits that arise from the use of belt conveyors to transport capsules – limits that determine process cycle time because they act as a ‘bottleneck’ on production. They can also limit machines to a single product or capsule.
“With our new concept we have broken this paradigm, allowing for quick and simple format change-over,” Nanni explained. He noted that Magneta also has a smaller footprint than many other machines and is easier to maintain, because of the lack of mechanical transmission elements and components, which reduces the cost of ownership.
IMA Coffee, who’s new coffee pilot plant is due to come online later this year, developed the Unika, which is capable of processing up to 600 capsules/minute. With a modular design, the Unika range of machines can be arranged in a number of configurations and configured on a case-by-case basis by IMA’s technicians. Each machine group is driven independently by brushless motors. With a focus on dosing accuracy, Unika machines are adaptable for use with coffees of different densities, thanks to a sensor integrated into the doser.