Nespresso, a subsidiary of the giant Nestlé, is launching a coffee capsule made from paper and compostable at home. Marketing to be put into perspective in terms of reducing packaging, according to the NGO Greenpeace.
The new individual portions including a biopolymer interior coating, compatible with existing machines, will be launched in Switzerland and France next spring, before several other European countries within a year, Nespresso said in a press release on Monday.
The novelty will not replace the pods currently sold in stores or online. According to Guillaume Le Cunff, managing director of Nestlé’s high-end portioned coffee subsidiary quoted in the document, “it will be added, in addition, to our offer of aluminum capsules that are both recyclable and 80% manufactured. from recycled aluminum.
Nespresso highlights the fact that Swiss Nespresso consumers can already deposit their used aluminum capsules at more than 3,700 collection points or that their waste can be collected at home.
>> To read also: Migros shows new ambitions in coffee with a pod without capsule
Little impact on the overall balance sheet
Joëlle Hérin, expert in circular economy for the NGO Greenpeace Switzerland, believes that this new product “is certainly a step in the right direction”, she declared to the agency AWP. “We assume that these compostable capsules have a comparatively more favorable balance than those made of aluminium”, provided that composting is carried out.
There is a real risk that the impression will be given to the consumer that coffee consumption is no longer a problem for the environment.
The announcement is however to be put into perspective, according to her. “The overall balance sheet of coffee, in itself considerable, is on the other hand little impacted by this innovation. The risk is real that the impression will be given to the consumer that the consumption of coffee is no longer a problem for the environment. This could increase its consumption and ultimately lead despite everything to a negative overall balance.”
At the end of October, an alliance of organizations, including Greenpeace, denounced the Veveysan food giant as one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world. “By relying for decades on single-use packaging, whether aluminum or plastic, Nestlé discharges the responsibility for waste on consumers and the community,” says Joëlle Hérin.
>> On the same topic: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestlé are the world’s biggest plastic polluters
Packaging changes
Already last week, another brand of the French-speaking multinational, Nescafé Dolce Gusto, announced a new machine that works with home-compostable paper pods that will be available in Brazil and then rolled out in other countries.
Swiss competition is also attacking the packaging of pods. In September, the orange giant Migros unveiled with great fanfare a new coffee machine that works with compostable coffee balls, also targeting the French and German markets.
In 2018, the Friborg manufacturer of biodegradable pods Ethical Coffee Company (ECC) was declared bankrupt by the Sarine Court. The boss of the company in over-indebtedness said at the time, in the columns of the newspaper Le Temps, “exhausted by the legal war against Nespresso”. ECC had discontinued its “Nespresso compatible” pods in 2017.
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