For those following along with our journey at home, here at Urban Brew we’ve been in the biz of trialling and testing new home compostable pods. Here’s a lil update on what’s taking so long in our quest for home compostability!

(If you’re short on time, read only what’s in bold.)

For those that don’t know (or for those just finding out about us!) our coffee pods in their current form are industrial compostable. This means that they can be disposed of in your green waste bin and will decompose in an industrial composting facility in far less time than aluminium pods. It’s a known fact that aluminium pods can take up to 500 years to decompose in landfill, which is not ideal - and is why the coffee pod market has such a bad rep!

Well, unless you’re correctly disposing of these aluminium pods, they’re creating more harm for the environment than good! Nespresso® (the biggest culprits in the aluminium coffee pod world) have publicly stated that only 30% of their pods are accurately recycled.

That’s why we’re here to provide the best quality eco-friendly coffee pod alternative possible!

And it’s also why we’re putting thousands of dollars into the research and development of home compostable coffee pods. We have three main boxes that we want to tick for our home compostable coffee pods to be successful:

✅ Must be certified home compostable as per Australian Standard 5180-2010 (tested by passing a minimum of 90% biodegradation and must contain more than 50% organic material)

✅ Must have a great extraction and a great taste. There are some home compostable coffee pods on the market right now but they are just watery and not strong. 

✅ Must be affordable. What’s the point in having the best home compostable coffee pods on the market if no one can afford them?

In order to achieve the perfect home compostable coffee pod, we need to perfect the first two without allowing the price to skyrocket.

We’ve been so close so many times, but it hasn’t ticked all three boxes just yet. It’s a big process of trial and error (and lots of coffee taste-testing), and with your support we’re confident that we’ll be able to produce the best quality home compostable coffee pods that are made right here in Australia, in the very near future. 

We hope that 2023 is our year.