The market for ‘fresh’ coffee has grown dramatically, as new brewing machines became popular and then the coffee pods arrived. So today the jar of instant coffee granules has largely been replaced by flexible pouches or vacuum packs containing freshly ground coffee of beans. More recently, pods have arrived, using a flexible membrane which is pierced to release the coffee.
Flexible packaging not only provides an excellent barrier to preserve the quality and freshness of the contents, they also release the wonderful aroma of the coffee when opened and seem to preserve that in a unique way.
The packs are much lighter than their rigid counterparts, so highly resource efficient, and can easily incorporate reseal features. Once again the printability of these pouches or ‘sous vide’ packs enable a strong branding and image to be portrayed over the entire ‘estate’ of the package.
The pod and the technology to use them is now a global phenomenon and flexible material membrane plays an important part in enabling the coffee to be kept perfectly preserved inside until it is pierced at the moment of consumption. This membrane can be either aluminium foil or, lately, a plastics laminate. A total foil pod is easily recycled, as with all aluminium packaging.