Oh, goodie. Vermont’s own Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is looking for new ways to sell its plastic non biodegradable K-Cups.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. is in talks with pharmaceutical companies about developing drinks for its Keurig brewers that it hopes could aid the health of consumers and company margins, a senior executive said.
I’ve always been highly ambivalent about GMCR, an authentic Vermont success story that’s created a lot of jobs — but has basically done so by manufacturing gazillions of K-cups. The company is facing an existential crisis on two fronts: the shitcanning of founder Bob Stiller after his binge-borrowing forced a stock sale at an inopportune time; and the pending expiration of some very valuable patents on the Keurig system, which will open the door to cheap competition for GMCR’s core product.
Its response: look for new high-margin stuff to fill those little plastic cups with. Nutritional concoctions, energy drinks, even medications, brewed into a delicious hot single-serving beverage. Or, as CEO Larry Blanford puts it: “a tremendous opportunity to carry functional additives to the consumer.” Just imagine the medicine chest of the future stuffed to the brim with K-cups, and a Keurig machine next to the sink. Maybe you could even get custom-made K-cups including all your prescription meds.
My ambivalence is heightened. GMCR insists it’s trying to develop a biodegradable K-cup. (Hey, if they manage to do it, there’s a new market they can exploit: the consumer who wants convenience but aspires to be earth-friendly might be willing to pay extra for a “green” K-cup.) But in the meantime, it’s littering our landfills with little plastic cups. And is actively looking for ways to sell lots and lots more of them — dreaming of a future where there’s a Keurig in every room, and we get all our fluids, supplements, stimulants and medicines one freshly-brewed cup at a time.
When our little business acquired a Keurig system a few years ago, I was expecting to be able to grind my own coffee for use in the little capsule-with-basket that was available for that purpose. The only problem is that this has never functioned properly to dispense a full cup of coffee in a single shot.
The machine still works perfectly after years, if you feed it a K-cup; but if you use the eco-friendly capsule, it never works properly.
Back four or more years ago, when I asked about the recycling issue, they told me then that they were “working on it.” I find it a little incredible that, after all these years, even when they were rolling in profit, they still haven’t been able to sort that out.
Not much Green Mountain State about Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
Other than all that mountain-grown coffee from Camel’s Hump and Mount Mansfield.
HDPE (#2) plastic is food-grade, temperature safe, and 100% reyclable.
There is no reason they can’t use HDPE, except for color. But I am sure there are plenty of great colors that would work just fine for their brand. These folks are using some really cute food-safe colors on recyclable food-grade HDPE:
http://www.re-play.com/learn.p…
A family member of mine has a job that often requires figuring out the right colors for medical- and food-grade plastics.
It can be done. Easily. Today.
My gut tells me it’s marketing standing in the way of a solution, not necessity.
Keurig has developed a biodegradable cup for their new line of brewers, the vue brewers. The cup portion of the new packs are #5 plastic: http://www.gmcr.com/csr/Protec…
Not sure this makes any real difference to the thrust of your comments, but wasn’t sure you knew.