How Keurig designed its new plastic-free K-Round pods

In 45 million households throughout America—upwards of 40% of the nation— the very first thing folks do once they get up is make a beeline to their Keurig machine for his or her morning cup of espresso. Then, they toss the plastic Okay-Cup within the trash or recycling bin. Over the course of a yr, that provides as much as greater than 30 billion discarded plastic capsules.

That’s about to alter. Over the previous few years, Keurig has been quietly redesigning its espresso system to eliminate its single-use plastic Okay-Cups. Instead, it has developed a brand new pod known as the Okay-Spherical that wraps the espresso grounds in a compostable coating. Keurig will start beta-testing these Okay-Rounds within the fall and hopes to promote them to the general public shortly thereafter.

The brand new Okay-Rounds are sleeker than the Okay-Cups that first got here to market 27 years in the past. Once you stick these flat, spherical pucks of espresso grounds in Keurig’s new machines, the outer shell is punctured and water will stream by way of the pod to create both a scorching or chilly cup of espresso. The pod’s exterior, which is primarily made from food-grade algae, will find yourself within the machine’s refuse bin. (This new format permits the Keurig to supply espresso, which was not potential with Okay-Cups.)

Given Keurig’s monumental buyer base, the Okay-Rounds have the potential to dramatically scale back the corporate’s environmental footprint. However Keurig’s dimension additionally means that it’ll take time for the corporate to roll out this new system and persuade shoppers to purchase a brand new Keurig machine. Within the meantime, plastic air pollution—and the tiny fragments of plastic that happen when plastics break down—continues to pose a severe risk to the planet and human well being.

Bob Gamgort, the chairman and CEO of Keurig’s dad or mum firm, discovered himself in a difficult place a number of years in the past. The Okay-Cup system is woven into shoppers’ on a regular basis lives and is a major driver of Keurig Dr Pepper’s $14.8 billion in annual income. However on the similar time, it’s clear that buyers are more and more involved about their environmental impression, and the Okay-Cup is a obtrusive instance of single-use plastic. Certainly, Keurig’s personal founder says he regrets ever inventing the K-Cup, given what a blight it has been on the setting.

“There wasn’t a lot of a dialog about plastic 30 years in the past, when the Okay-cup was invented,” Gamgort says. “A lot has modified. And if you wish to be a pacesetter 30 years from now, you could begin to consider disrupting your self, in any other case one other firm will disrupt you.”

Gamgort began pushing his group to develop a extra sustainable strategy to single-serve espresso, whereas additionally persevering with to enhance the sustainability of the present Okay-Cups, that are more likely to stay in circulation for a lot of extra years. He says Keurig has invested closely over the past eight years in redesigning the Okay-Cup to get rid of any non-recyclable plastic, so they’d be curbside recyclable; it additionally transitioned away from virgin plastic to recycled plastic. However the gold commonplace for sustainable design is compostability, and Keurig’s design group wasn’t capable of finding a compostable materials that might simply substitute the plastic within the Okay-Cup within the provide chain.

Round 5 years in the past, Gamgort invited members of the Keurig analysis and improvement group to create a separate group centered on radically reimagining how the corporate might ship its single serve espresso. This group would function independently so they might give you new concepts from scratch, fairly than merely iterating on the established order. “This group would have all of the data about shoppers, expertise and low, in addition to entry to all our expertise,” Gamgort says. “However I wished them to consider themselves as a startup that may compete towards us to create a greater long-term resolution. They began with a white sheet of paper and actually no thought what the last word resolution would appear like.”

Gamgort additionally wished to fund this group like a startup. This meant setting apart a certain amount of “seed funding” for them to prototype their resolution. After which, as they got here again with concepts, he would proceed to create a finances that may assist them get to their subsequent stage of improvement, very similar to a startup founders preserve returning to VCs for brand spanking new rounds of funding.

Importantly, Gamgort didn’t need to set a selected time horizon for his or her work. “I’ve realized that you could’t schedule innovation,” he says. “Once you say that an thought must be launched in 2024 and must hit these objectives, folks begin to minimize corners. We didn’t want a timetable; we wanted the very best thought.”

Keurig’s innovation group didn’t begin with the machine or the expertise. As an alternative, they began with the cup of espresso they wished to supply.

After rigorously learning client conduct round espresso, they realized that the last word resolution wanted to be suitable with each excessive and low water strain, since this could create extra numerous drinks, from espresso to chilly espresso. They thought of eliminating the pod idea collectively and simply creating strong pucks of packed floor espresso, however this was problematic as a result of the espresso would get stale shortly and shoppers didn’t need to cope with the mess of grounds.

In the long run, they decided they wanted to create a pod, however it needed to be made from a fabric that was eco-friendly. They scoured the marketplace for present options. This led them to a Swiss firm known as Delica that had developed a seaweed primarily based materials that may maintain the grounds collectively, however is versatile sufficient to broaden and contract when it comes into contact with water. Keurig purchased this expertise from Delica to be used within the North American market and made it the inspiration of the brand new Okay-Spherical system.

In an fascinating twist, Delica has its personal espresso model, Coffee B, that makes use of sustainable single-serve balls of espresso grounds encapsulated within the form of digestible coating present in drugs.

To make use of the brand new pods, Keurig constructed a brand new machine known as the Keurig Alta that additionally operates with present Okay-Cups. It was extra pricey and complex to create a machine that might accommodate each sorts of capsules, since they’re fairly totally different by way of each form and materials. However Gamgort says this was a vital design choice. For one factor, even shoppers that determine to change to the Okay-Spherical system could have a inventory of present Okay-Cups they may need to end. However Keurig additionally makes 500 totally different sorts of espresso within the Okay-Cup system, and it will likely be unimaginable to transition all of them to Okay-Rounds instantly. “From our many conversations with shoppers, we realized this is able to be a technique to allow trial, whereas taking away the chance,” he says.

Now, Keurig is able to start sending the Okay-Rounds into the world. Within the fall, it’ll launch its beta check with an professional panel and acquire as a lot information as potential to proceed iterating on the expertise. One factor they are going to be attempting to determine is precisely how a lot these new merchandise ought to price. Gamgort says the objective is to make this new system reasonably priced, however there’s additionally some variation in how a lot present Keurig machines price, from $49 to $200.

In the end, Keurig believes the brand new Okay-Rounds will likely be able to hit the market in a matter of months. Keurig has labored laborious to make the transition to those new pods as seamless as potential. Gamgort has pushed this group to create an answer that doesn’t compromise on comfort, affordability, or high quality. Nevertheless it’s unclear what number of shoppers will likely be keen to purchase the brand new machine or how lengthy it’ll take to eradicate the plastic Okay-Cups utterly.

Gamgort believes it’s higher for Keurig to be tackling these points now, fairly than in years to return. “There’s a saying inside this firm, which is that you just don’t store whenever you’re hungry,” he says. “The very best time to launch a brand new product is whenever you don’t have to launch it. And for us, that point is now.”