FORT COLLINS — Keep that caffeine buzz going, Keurig requests, but please chill just a bit as the maker of coffee pods deals with its environmental challenge.
Keurig Green Mountain has generated recent criticism over the prodigious number of its disposable plastic single-serve pods that end up in landfills.
Keurig’s $4.7 billion of sales last year represented enough coffee packs to circle the globe more than 10 times, according to one analyst’s estimate that is often cited by critics of the Vermont-based company.
A resolution is coming, but not soon.
“We have made some very vocal commitments that we’ll have new packaging by 2020,” Lindsey Bolger, a Keurig vice president, said Friday in Fort Collins at the Colorado State University Agriculture Innovation Summit.
Bolger’s presentation at the summit was on sustainability in coffee cultivation — not packaging — but she said if it were up to her, the pod-changeover timetable would be moved up.
“None of us are comfortable with that (2020) goal,” she said. “We feel we need to get there sooner.”
Switching to recyclable or biodegradable pods is not as easy as it sounds, Bolger said. An effective container must provide a barrier between coffee and the damaging effects of oxygen, light and moisture — all while holding up to the high heat of brewing.
“We’ve built our brand on consistency and quality,” she said. “That is paramount for us.”
