Coffee capsules, environmental costs and health risks

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The discovery of hot water with coffee flavor in capsules, the business of the century. Skyrocketing profits, environmental costs and health risks externalized onto the community. To consumAtors, some insights to ponder.

Capsule coffee, the market data

One-third of the coffee market in Western Europe-by value, out of a total of about 18 billion euros-is represented by capsules and pods. The segment continues to grow at a rapid pace (+9% per year, the 2011-2017 average), in a vice versa stable sector (+1.6%, over the same period). (1) In Italy in 2018 alone, the growth of the capsule segment was 10 times that of the ground coffee segment, +14.6% vs. +1,4%. (2)

Globally, sales are predicted to double from US$15.23 billion to US$29.2 billion from 2017-2025. (3) Coffee capsules continue to lead the way as revenue growth is accompanied by operating margins in excess of 50 percent. (4) It is no coincidence that the Nestlé Group-a world leader in the food industry-has focused the bulk of its investment precisely on Nespresso. Which in turn, ça va sans dir, dominates the scene.

All good? The roasting industries and various distribution channels grind out profits, but the greenwashing that floods their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) manuals can never compensate for the unsustainable impact of this consumption pattern on the environment and health.

Capsules, what environmental impact?

Insert the colored aluminum case and press the button. The electric trinket shoots the liquid, hot but not too hot. They call it ‘espresso coffee,’ it is found everywhere it is impossible to go wrong. You just have to spend, the more the casing costs, the higher the score. A small bourgeois luxury that is increasingly unfailing, ‘almost as good as at the bar‘ in the rhetoric of its adherents. Who in fact now compare the exorbitant costs of ‘single-serve’ with those of over-the-counter espresso, rather than ground coffee in 250 or 500 g packs.

Hundreds of millions of consumers around the world each day insert a disposable capsule into a small household appliance, only to send tens of thousands of tons of their respective packaging-not reusable-to landfills and incinerators. Some giants boast that they use ‘recyclable’ aluminum, but do not ensure that the containers are actually sent for recycling (as should be done by introducing deposit-caution requirements). Nor explain that reusing the metal results in further waste of resources and emissions, as the used ‘casings’ must be transported, shredded, washed with water to remove the coffee, and burned to remove the paint, before the aluminum can be melted down. Others use capsules made of bioplastics and compostable materials, with the promise of mitigating the environmental impact of the phenomenon. Unless, however, it gets in the way of compost production in its final stage of sieving.

Life-Cycle Assessment of coffee capsules is inevitably disastrous. The materials most commonly used to produce the single-serving, nonreusable containers are derived from nonrenewable sources. Aluminum, polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), i.e., minerals, petroleum and polluting materials. Producing the materials and containers, when even derived from biopolymers, has a significant energy cost and results in equally significant CO2 emissions. The environment must then bear the cost of secondary packaging, the luxurious cases of the extensive collections of ‘customized’ blends. And so cardboards, inks, energy and emissions, disposal. Dulcis in fundo the transport of light as well as bulky packaging.

Waste, targets and prevention measures

Reducing the production and consumption of what is not strictly necessary is the first imperative of circular economy and sustainable development. The directive ‘on packaging and packaging waste’ -subject to recent reform in 2018 with the ‘circular economy package’ – prescribes the following.

‘Member States shall ensure that […] other preventive measures are implemented to prevent the generation of packaging waste and to minimize the environmental impact of packaging . Such other preventive measures may consist of national programs, incentives provided through schemes of extended producer responsibility aimed at minimizing the environmental impact of packaging or in similar actions taken, where appropriate, after consultation with economic operators, environmental organizations and consumers, and designed to bring together and take advantage of the many initiatives taken within the territory of the member states in the area of prevention’. (5)

Reuse is the second diktat. The design of processes, flows and products must first and foremost avoid the unnecessary and minimize the indispensable. The next step, in the logic of circular economy, is the design of objects with the logic of encouraging their reuse.

‘In accordance with the waste hierarchy. established in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC, Member States shall take measures to encourage an increase in the proportion of reusable packaging placed on the market, as well as systems for reusing packaging in an environmentally sound manner and in accordance with the Treaty, without compromising food hygiene or consumer safety. These measures may include, among others:

(a) the use of deposit return systems;

(b) the setting of qualitative or quantitative targets;

(c) the use of economic incentives;


(d) the establishment of a minimum percentage of reusable packaging placed on the market each year for each packaging stream’
. (6)

The European legislature, in invoking such lofty concepts as the ‘sustainable bio-economy,’ has been careful not to prescribe specific measures and binding targets for member states on the two cornerstones of the waste hierarchy, reduction and reuse. Business is Business, and current policy pursues its priorities in antithesis to the common good. The aforementioned directive thus leaves the member states carte blanche, merely defining recycling targets for materials (plastics, wood, ferrous materials, aluminum, paper and cardboard).

Coffee, ecological innovation?

Green innovation on coffee capsules is being led by some large Italian roasting industries. Vergnano was the first to make a compostable capsule, which can be disposed of in the organic waste fraction without being separated from the coffee. Lavazza, the Italian market leader, then developed with Novamont the bioplastic capsule MaterBi, which is biodegradable and compostable. In turn, Tor Vergata University in Rome has developed a new system using PLA (polylactic acid, made by fermenting sugary raw materials).

This approach is undoubtedly appreciable, as it avoids consuming bauxite (aluminum’s basic raw material) and/or oil and hydrocarbons. Nevertheless, as it turns out, recyclable capsules miss the primary goals of reducing and reusing packaging materials. In addition to burdening recycling plants far more than the wet waste and paper from which coffee pods are made instead, which also can flow into the wet waste. To consumAtors, once again, the responsibility of daily choice. Being clear that for the environment, the ‘George Clooney model’ is the most onerous, mocha and real espresso are the favorites, the pod in the middle between.

Coffee capsules and health risks

Last but not least, capsule coffee consumption has some health risks. Due to the presence of a family of carcinogenic and genotoxic organic compounds-furans and methylfurans-in amounts up to 10 times higher than in ground coffee. (7) Contributing to this are roasting temperatures and times, as well as airtight sealing in containers that prevent the dispersion of these highly volatile substances. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has confirmed the long-term danger of liver damage associated with exposure to these substances. (8) EFSA could not establish a tolerable daily dose, as it could not rule out that the tumor arises due to direct interaction of furans with DNA.

As the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), we concluded that the level of furan exposure in food indicates a human health problem’ (Dr. Helle Knutsen, Chair of the Expert Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain, 25.10.17). (9)

The European Commission led by Jean Claude Juncker-with EU Regulation 2017/2158 that came into force on 11.4.18-limited itself to establishing ‘mitigation measures’ and ‘reference levels’. Without even distinguishing capsule coffee versus ground coffee, in scope and so in the monitoring to be performed. (10) This is the power of Big Food lobbying in Brussels, POP(Profit Over People). Once again bland measures, lacking binding measures on unacceptable contamination levels, in relation to genotoxic and carcinogenic substances. In the case of furans, as in those ofacrylamide and mineral oils in food. (11)

Everything is so simple, indeed POP! But is it really worth it?

Dario Dongo

Notes

(1) Rabobank (2018). How Coffee Will Look Different in Ten Years, https://research.rabobank.com/far/en/sectors/beverages/How_Coffee_Will_Look_Different_in_Ten_Years.html

(2) GDO News, 29.11.18, Coffee capsules: a market for giants, those without financial strength are doomed to disappear. Latest market data

(3) Fiormarkets (2019). Global Coffee Pod and Capsule Market by Product Type (Coffee Capsules, Coffee Pods), Application Type (Coffee Beans, Coffee Powder), Material (Conventional Plastic, Others), Region Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2018 to 2025, https://www.fiormarkets.com/report-detail/375940/request-sample

(4) Nestlé maintains confidentiality about its gross margins in this business unit. About 85 percent, according to the study by Prof. Frank Matzler (2013) Business model innovation: coffee triumphs for Nespresso . Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 34 No. 2 2013, pp. 30-37, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0275-6668 doi: 10.1108/02756661311310431
50 percent or so, in the opinion of a student of the Digital Innovation and Transfrmation Course, Harvard Business School. Rpark submission (2018). Brewing a Successful Future at Nespresso?, https://digit.hbs.org/submission/brewing-a-successful-future-at-nespresso/

(5) See dir. EU 2018/852 ‘of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 30, 2018, amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste’, new Art. 4.1

(6) See EU dir. 2018/852, new article 5 – Reuse.

(7) M. S. Altaki et al. (2011). Occurrence of furan in coffee from Spanish market: Contribution of brewing and roasting. Food Chemistry Vol 126, Issue 4, June 15, 2011, Pages 1527-1532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2010.11.134

(8) EFSA, Contaminants Panel. (2017) Risks for public health related to the presence of furans and methylfurans in food. EFSA Journal 25 October 2017 doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2017.5005

(9) EFSA, press release 25.10.17, https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/press/news/171025

(10) Cf. reg. EU 2017/2158 ‘establishing mitigation measures and reference levels the reduction of acrylamide in food’, Article 1, paragraph 2, subparagraphs ‘f’ and ‘g’

(11) Even worse is the wilful omission of any measures to protect European consumers-and children in particular-against the serious risks posed by the intake of process contaminants, also genotoxic and carcinogenic, that refined palm oil contains in quantities 6-10 times higher than other refined vegetable oils. This is not the Europe we want! See previous article https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/idee/palma-leaks-grande-puzza-di-bruciato-anche-a-bruxelles

Dario Dongo
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Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.