Tchibo, a German coffee producer has changed the coffee capsule game for its Qbo brand by introducing a bio-based capsule made of second-generation renewable raw materials.
While coffee capsules have becomes popular around the world, the downside is its environmental footprint.
Keeping this in mind, Tchibo has changed the material composition of its Qbo brand capsules to improve their sustainability. The company has teamed up with Berry Superfos, the producer of their capsules and Neste, their Finish feedstock supplier.
Marius-Konstantin Wiche, development manager, capsule and innovation at Tchibo said, “While our Qbo capsules are still made of polypropylene (PP), now the PP is produced from 70% renewable raw materials instead of virgin fossil oil as is normally the case for coffee capsules. Our new capsules are not only made from renewable materials. This makes the entire Qbo range – containing sustainably grown Qbo coffee brewed in Qbo machines – one of the most sustainable capsule systems on the market.”
Wiche further added, “We needed to ensure that the high quality and great taste of the Qbo coffee would not be affected. That’s why we focused on replacing the raw materials for the capsules, not the PP itself. We now use so-called second-generation renewable raw materials, organic waste and by-products, such as tall oils from forestry, waste fats from the fast-food industry and vegetable fats from cooking oil production. These materials go into producing PP polymers with the same quality as virgin PP; you won’t see or taste any difference.”
“We chose Berry Superfos for this project since they have experience with our product and hold the required ISCC PLUS certification to produce the capsules from renewable materials. Their knowledge of foil extrusion and thermoforming for our capsules is excellent and we also appreciate their inhouse engineering and machining of related parts for our products.”
“Together, our team, Neste and Berry Superfos have created a fantastic result, Qbo coffee still maintains its premium quality, but now in a capsule produced with less CO2 emissions,” concluded Wiche.