Felix Bischopink, CEO of Siegwierk Ventures and Packiro, reveals the secrets behind their innovative approach and commitment to sustainability in the industry. 

Learn more about Packiro’s sustainable, individually printed stand-up pouches and why they are the ideal choice for the Roast Masters™️ competition coffee bags.

What standards should quality coffee packaging currently meet?
“Coffee bags should be sustainable and have a high barrier, not an easy task for a packaging production. Additionally the quality, the stand and the print is a differentiator at the point of sales. A high quality coffee in an unattractive packaging can lead the customer to a competitor product.” 

How 'green' is the current generation of coffee packaging?
“For coffee, a recyclable plastic pouch is still the best option. It has the necessary barrier and is the most sustainable option among all other options.”

Is there a completely sustainable coffee pouch, which is recyclable, biodegradable and or compostable, on the market already?
“Compostable sounds amazing in theory, but it’s not, because you need the infrastructure to process it. It’s not like you can throw an empty pouch in the forest assuming it will degrade. It’s still plastic, just made from a different source.”

That might come as a shock to many…
“Biodegradable or compostable coffee packaging is often only green washing. The plastic in these pouches cannot be recycled and therefore will be burned in the system. In some cases, for example when countries don’t offer a national recycling scheme, it can have advantages which is why Packiro does them also in the portfolio. But in almost every case, I know, biodegradable packaging has a very weak barrier. Therefore we never recommend biodegradable pouches to coffee customers. In the end, the recycled plastic pouch is the best option due to sustainability and barrier.”

What’s new within the world of coffee packaging that excites you?
“At the moment the industry is looking at three options that can be more sustainable than recycled plastic. The first would be barrier paper for paper recycling. Currently paper is too weak to hold 1kilogram of coffee, but this will be solved in the next few years and then it might be an option. It would be super sustainable if packaging was made from recycled plastic. At the moment, the law prevents the use of recycled plastic for food packaging, but this will change. And lastly if new technology could increase the barrier of biobased plastic and enable it to be recycled than that would be great.”