A partnership between Oakland Coffee Works, owned by Green Day’s Mike Dirnt and Billie Joe Armstrong, and San Francisco Bay Coffee Company is bringing to market organic coffee in packaging made from fully compostable materials—including bags and single-serving pods.
In late October 2016, Oakland Coffee introduced what it says is the first coffee bag made of certified compostable materials to four Bay Area Costco stores, as well as on Costco.com and Amazon.com. The proprietary packaging uses plant-based materials that include corn and sugar starches, and cellophane made from cellulose.
“First there was diner coffee, then there was second-wave coffee, like Starbucks, and then came the third wave with artisanal coffee—but this is the next step: organic, truly high-quality coffee that fairly supports the farmers who grow it and that comes in packaging made from fully compostable materials,” says Dirnt, a long-time coffee enthusiast and bassist for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Green Day. “It’s no-compromise coffee in no-compromise packaging.”
To create the packaging was no small effort. Dirnt, Armstrong, and the Oakland Coffee team went looking for sustainable solutions as they were developing their brand. They were intentional in the impact they wanted to make: to offer sustainably farmed, “damn good” organic coffee, and to do business differently. They wanted to support the farmers and their communities, and offer products with a minimal footprint on the environment. But it was a challenge for them to find a supplier that could produce a coffee bag made from certified compostable materials that functioned like a conventional bag.
While searching for solutions, Oakland Coffee found like-minded partners at San Francisco Bay Coffee who were on a similar mission to find (and fund) compostable packaging that would change the game on waste as well as challenge the industry to change.
“We’re a family-owned company, and we care a lot about our impact and the legacy we’re leaving for our kids,” says John Rogers. “We wanted to be a company that solved the waste problem for the coffee industry, so we have invested more than five years of work and more than $2 million so far toward developing fully compostable pods and bags. Our goal is to influence the rest of the industry to adopt it, too. Mike and Billie Joe wanted to do the same thing, so we partnered so we could really make an impact.”
The two coffee companies will also be releasing single-serve pods made from fully compostable materials—in the coming weeks, in the case of Oakland Coffee, and in early 2017, in the case of San Francisco Bay Coffee.
Says Dirnt, “We want consumers to have a choice that doesn’t require a compromise. We want to make great coffee that supports farmworkers and makes sustainable packaging accessible to everyone, without pushing the added costs onto our consumers. By riding the fourth wave with us, everyone can enjoy great, quality coffee that gives more people a choice towards a sustainable future.”
