December 2010

Coffee-related products / K-Cups/Keurig brewers: alternatives

Solofill Reusable coffee filter for Keurig K-Cup brewers

I’ve written about less-wasteful alternatives to the single use K-Cups used in Keurig K-Cup brewers. Each allows you to use your own coffee with the Keurig brewers. There are two routes.

One is to reuse a used K-Cup. I described step-by-step how you can refill used K-Cups, which is rather labor intensive. I also wrote a detailed review of the the My-Kap Kaps for Keurig K-Cup Brewers, a lid that fits on a used K-Cup. This does cut down on the labor of refilling a bit, but either way, you can only reuse a used K-Cup a limited number of times, and eventually it ends up in a landfill.

The other route is to use a device that takes the place of the K-Cup. Up until recently, the only option was Keurig’s own refillable filter basket, the My K-Cup reusable coffee filter. You can read my review of it here. Then along came the EZ-Cup By Perfect Pod. I have not tried this particular product, as some reviews indicated it could be a bit fiddly, and it also requires the use of proprietary paper filters, which did not appeal to me. Given that most other brands of pods are made from cheap coffee by the big corporate coffee roasters (Senseo = Sara Lee, Tassimo = Kraft), that isn’t even an option in my book.

Now we have another K-Cup replacement. The Solofill Cup, Reusable coffee filter cup. This invention appears to have resolved a number of the shortcomings of other methods.

  • The Solofill drops right into the Keurig brewer’s holder, just like a K-Cup, so there is no need to remove the filter holder assembly, as required by the My K-Cup (which is an inconvenient step).
  • The lid is attached and the stainless steel basket is integrated. With this one-piece design, no parts should go missing.
  • The whole she-bang is dishwasher safe.
  • The plastic is recyclable.  It’s made from BPA-free plastic, which the My-Kap is apparently not.
  • It’s “self-tamping” and water is dispersed through the coffee, versus just being shot through a single hole, as in most other alternatives.

The Solofill holds roughly 11 grams of coffee. This is about the same amount of coffee that is in an “extra bold” K-Cup, and so may also satisfy people who find regular K-Cups produce weak coffee. Or, to look at it another way, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, recommends 10 grams of coffee per 6 oz cup. Obviously, how the coffee turns out also depends on the brew size setting of the Keurig brewer — for the Solofill’s 11 grams the brewer should be set to brew a 7.25 oz cup, or even 5.25 oz (brewers vary in their brew size settings). For the sake of comparison, I found that the My K-Cup holds right around 14.5 to 16 grams of coffee.

The Solofill is compatible with 11 Keurig brewer models, two Brevilles, and one Mr. Coffee.  However, an enterprising user has provided a simple modification for the Solofill that allows it to be used with Keurig models that would otherwise result in leakage.

I’ve not had a chance to test the Solofill yet, but it is getting excellent reviews on the Single Serve Coffee forums.  If you have a Keurig brewer and give this product a try, please remember to fill it with sustainably-grown coffee, and feel free to leave your impressions in the comments.

Certifications / Corporate coffee

Certified coffee: current market share, part 2

(Update: I now regularly update the post Corporate coffee: How much is eco-certified? as new information becomes available.)

I often point out that the amount of sustainably-grown coffee that various large corporate coffee roasters purchase is a very small proportion of their total coffee purchases. In a previous post, I looked at the current market share of certified sustainably-grown coffee broken down by certification. Here, we’ll look at which of the world’s major coffee buyers/roasters are purchasing this coffee.

The source of this data is the Tropical Commodity Coalition, a group of ten NGOs that puts out annual reports on various aspects of the coffee, tea, and cocoa industries.  The Coffee Barometer 2009 presents market developments in the certified coffee sector.

Among the interesting data included is a summary of the green (unroasted) coffee purchases by each of the world’s top ten coffee buyers for 2008. It highlights how much “certified” coffee each buyer purchased, including Rainforest Alliance, Utz Certified, organic, Fair Trade, 4c, and the private initiatives of Starbucks (CAFE Practices) and Nestlè (Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Coffee Program).

In this post, I’ll disregard coffee purchased under Fair Trade (which does not have strong environmental standards) and the 4C Code (see this post on Nestlè and deforestation for information on this bottom-rung system, which does not include environmental criteria any of us would consider as being meaningfully “eco-friendly”). I’ll leave in the Starbucks and Nespresso programs and comment on them below.

So, how much eco-friendly, sustainably-grown coffee is purchased by the big buyers?

Nestlè. Owns Nescafè, Nespresso, Taster’s Choice, Clasico. Purchased 780,000 tons of green coffee in 2008.

  • 13,000 tons under their Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Coffee Program, or 1.7% of total purchases –but read on. The standards used by Nestlè in this program are not publicly available. Nestlè is working with Rainforest Alliance for guidance, but currently source farms are not certified by Rainforest Alliance. From what I have been able to gather, this program probably has fewer meaningful requirements for environmental protection than Fair Trade or Utz Certified, so pegging them at 1.7% is being generous.

Kraft. Yuban, Maxwell House, General Foods International Coffee, Gevalia, Kenco, Maxim, Tassimo, Nabob, and Sanka. 740,000 tons.

  • 29,500 tons Rainforest Alliance, 4% of total.

Sara Lee. Senseo, Java Coast, various foodservice, Merrild, Kanis & Gunnink, Cafe Pilao, Cafitesse, Harris, Piazza d’Oro; Douwe Egberts is its coffee subsidiary, under which many of these brands appear. 450,000 tons.

  • 20,000 tons Utz Certified (4.4%). The Utz focus is more on traceability and the business end of the spectrum, not environmental standards.

Smuckers. Folgers and Millstone (acquired from Procter & Gamble), Kava, Dunkin Donuts grocery store coffee. 280,000 tons.

  • 1,500 tons Rainforest Alliance/Fair Trade/organic (0.5%). This is a combination of the three, rather than the total amount being triple-certified. There are few organic coffees in their line, one RA coffee (discontinued as of 2011), so the amount is heavily weighted toward Fair Trade. Because of the relatively weak environmental standards of Fair Trade, this means the percentage of eco-friendly coffee is even lower.

Starbucks. 175,000 tons.

  • 4,500 tons organic (2.6%).
  • 120,500 tons under their CAFE Practices (68.8%, for a combined total of 71.4%). I recently took a look at the environmental standards of Starbucks CAFE Practices, and found they  address many more relevant ecological issues than either Fair Trade or UTZ Certified, and they are certainly much stronger than the Nespresso program. What does this mean?

Starbucks buys nearly twice as much coffee grown under meaningful environmental standards than the four largest coffee buyers in the world combined.

Perhaps more than all nine other big buyers. And they have developed these standards, worked with farmers to meet them, and use third-party verification as part of their own corporate initiative. Say what you want about the Mermaid, they do good work on the ground.

Tchibo. 170,000 tons.

  • 5,500 tons Rainforest Alliance/Fair Trade/organic (3.2%). See note under Smuckers about this combined total.

Aldi. Purchases for their private label store brands Beaumont, Alcafe, and Grandessa Signature. 145,000 tons. Percentages not disclosed.

Melitta. Melitta, World Harvest Estate. 145,000tons. Percentages not disclosed.

Lavazza. 140,000 tons.

  • 1,400 tons Rainforest Alliance (1%).

Segafredo. Segrafredo is a brand division of Massimo Zanetti, Beverage Group, which also owns Chock Full o’Nuts, Chase and Sanborn, MJB, and Hills Bros. They grow all their own coffee on plantations in Brazil (said to be the largest plantation in the world) and Costa Rica. Presumably, the 120,000 tons quoted in the report apparently is their production, not actually purchased. None is certified.

So, not counting Aldi and Melitta, since they did not disclose how much (or if) they bought any certified coffee, the big buyers purchased 2,855,000 tons of coffee, of which less than 7% was grown under verifiable sustainable environmental standards.

As mentioned in the last post, I’ve often heard that the reason big roasters do not purchase more sustainable coffee is because there isn’t enough available. This report also gives data on the amount of certified coffee produced, versus the amount purchased. There were 124,000 tons of Rainforest Alliance certified coffee produced in 2008, a surplus of 62,000 tons that was not purchased as certified. The surplus of Utz Certified coffee was 230,500 tons. Had all this been bought, then the percentage of certified coffee purchased by these buyers would have risen to around 17%.

Coffee-related products

Review: Reusable hemp coffee filter

Mr. Natural’s reusable hemp coffee filter [discontinued here is an organic alternative]

I admit that I prefer the taste of drip coffee brewed through a paper filter, but hate the waste. Although I compost both the grounds and the filter, trees still fell to produce the filter in the first place.  Every brewing method brings to the cup a slightly (sometimes greatly) different flavor profile. I’m not always enthusiastic about the results a gold filter produces with some coffees.

I decided to try a reusable cloth coffee filter, and I’ve been extremely pleased with the results.

I have read that cloth filters allow some of the coffee oils through; not as much as gold filters (or from coffee made in a French press) and not as little as some paper filters. As with paper, there is little or no sediment with a cloth filter, depending on the fineness of the weave of the cloth. In general, cloth filters are said to result in a cup that is less astringent and with better mouthfeel.

As far as types of cloth, the choice is most often cotton versus hemp. Frankly, the tightness of the weave would probably be the factor most related to the final coffee outcome, although I’m sure some people will advocate for one or the other based on some other intrinsic quality of the fiber. In my opinion, if you’re going to go green by purchasing a cloth filter , you may as go all way and get hemp. Cotton, if not grown organically, is grown with a ton of environmentally-harmful chemicals. While I have seen unbleached organic cotton coffee filters, they are not as common as hemp filters. Hemp for fiber is typically grown organically or with a minimum of chemicals, so is probably the “greener” choice.

Therefore, I went with a hemp filter by Mr. Naturals. Compared to locally available cloth filters, I found this filter to be very thick and sturdy — it doesn’t sag in the filter basket. The weave is fine enough that brew time is not accelerated. Although it’s a #4 cone for my drip machine, I’ve used it in my #2 size pour-over cone and it brews at the same pace as a paper filter, and the fit is actually perfectly adequate. I agree with others on the end product: a slightly lusher mouthfeel than paper and only a little bit of very fine sediment. At least with this filter and the coffees I have been recently drinking, I couldn’t detect a significant flavor difference due to the presence of more oils. Your mileage may vary.

In addition to being far less wasteful, the other big advantage of cloth filters is that you don’t get the “paper” taste that some people get with paper filters. I will admit that I tend not to taste paper, so this isn’t an issue for me, but I know it is for many coffee aficionados. I certainly did not taste “cloth” with the hemp filter. But one of my biggest reservations in trying a cloth filter to begin with is that it seemed to me that it would be hard to clean, and eventually you’d taste old coffee oils or just general funk.

Here’s how to clean a cloth filter:

After each use, rinse thoroughly in very hot water, give it a rub or light brushing with a toothbrush, and store in container of water in the refrigerator to prevent mold or bacterial growth between uses. If it’s used daily or more often, you can just wring it out, pop it in a Ziploc bag, and toss it in the fridge. I’m pretty lazy, so that’s what I do. I confess that I have also just wrung it out and let it dry and so far I’ve had no issues. Once a week, soak the filter in Oxyclean Free (no perfumes) and boiling water, rinse it, and store it in the fridge again. Some users boil it again in clean water after the Oxyclean treatment. Frankly, it seems easiest to have at least two filters so you aren’t left in a lurch if one is getting an Oxyclean bath.

Certifications / Rainforest Alliance

Certified coffee: current market share, part 1

(Update: I now regularly update the post Eco-certified coffee: How much is there? when new information is available.)

The State of Sustainability Initiatives Review 2010: Sustainability and Transparency was issued by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) in conjunction with other partners and collaborators. It compares characteristics and provides market trends for ten “voluntary sustainability initiatives” in the forestry, coffee, tea, cocoa and banana sectors. These include the familiar coffee certification schemes of Rainforest Alliance, Utz Certified, organic, and Fair Trade. Also included is 4C Code of Conduct compliant coffee, the bottom rung of coffee production standards (you can read more about them in this post).

The Review reports that as of 2009, there were 457,756 metric tons of sustainable coffee sold in the world, or about 8% of global exports. Below this is depicted graphically. The “private sustainability initiatives” are Starbucks CAFE Practices and the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program.

The document goes on to note, however, that the supply of sustainable coffee is actually 17% of global production (1,243,257 metric tons).

Due to a variety of factors related to variations in quality, the timing of demand, and the additional licensing, marketing and product costs associated with carrying compliant or certified coffee through the supply chain as sustainable coffee, more sustainable coffee is produced than is actually sold as sustainable.

This situation is not new, and has puzzled me for some time, at least in the context of why large corporate coffee roasters, like Kraft and Nestlé, don’t increase the amount of sustainably-grown coffee they buy.  A perennial sore spot among many sustainable coffee proponents and Rainforest Alliance, for instance, is that there doesn’t seem to be any increase in the proportion of certified beans in corporate-owned coffee brands; they sit at the minimum of 30% certified beans. The explanation I usually hear is that there isn’t enough supply for that proportion to grow, yet it appears that there is (see more here). Perhaps I’m missing something.

Although, as the report points out, just the act of producing coffee in a sustainable manner has positive impacts in growing communities, without the added benefits of enhanced income and/or access to markets, there is less incentive for farmers to utilize these methods.  Presumably, a chunk of the onus is on the consumer to be willing to seek out and pay more for this coffee. I’ve flogged that pony before (here for example).

Market share information was provided for the past five years, although not every scheme has been around that long. For those in coffee that have existed at least four years, Rainforest Alliance had the highest annual growth rate at 64%, with both Utz and Fair Trade at 30%.

Speaking of Rainforest Alliance, there was this graph breaking down certified area by country. There were similar graphs for Utz Certified (top three producers were Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia) and Fair Trade (Peru, Colombia, and Brazil); organic and 4C coffees were only broken down regionally. It would be interesting to see these reconfigured as percent of each country’s production.

There was also a wealth of data on other aspects such as certification costs and premiums to growers. There were detailed comparisons of and various characteristics including income sources, chain of custody methods, and governance (the charts on page 39 showing board representation by stakeholder and geographic region was quite an eye-opener).

In an upcoming post I’ll look at similar data from another perspective: how much of this sustainably-grown, certified coffee is purchased by the each of the world’s top ten major coffee buyers.

Coffee news and miscellany

Sips: Season of giving

In the past, I have provided some suggestions for holiday gifts — great coffee- or bird-related charities as well as more conventional gifts for sustainable-coffee lovers. Here are my 2010 suggestions, which focus on helping people in coffee-growing communities.

  • Sustainable Harvest International works in Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Through projects with organic vegetable gardens, wood-conserving stoves, and biogas digesters, SHI works in rural communities to preserve tropical forests while overcoming poverty.  You can support their work by contributing through AlternativeGifts.org to SHI’s sustainable farming project, which funds the planting of shade agroforestry crops such as coffee and cacao. You can also donate directly through their web site to that project, or others including funding women’s loans and wood-conserving stoves.
  • Speaking of stoves, David Pohl of Equator Coffees recently wrote a great piece at Huffington Post outlining the huge problem in coffee-growing (and other rural) communities with primitive cooking methods that endanger health and the environment. This is a serious and widespread problem with straightforward solutions. One way to help is to donate to the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.
  • Support organic farming — including coffee — in Chiapas, Mexico. This project is coordinated by International Development Exchange (IDEX), a grant-making non-profit that works with local organizations. You can donate via the Global Giving website.
  • Grounds for Health provides cervical cancer screening in coffee-growing communities, and Coffee Kids [now under a larger foundation] has a wealth of programs in coffee communities in Latin America supporting education, health awareness, microcredit and food security.

Peace this holiday season.