The demand for easily prepared and specialty coffee, including decaf is rapidly increasing.
Pod Pack Australia operations manager Martin French said “The trend in Australasia is following the big trend in the US, where decaf accounts for close to 20 percent of sales.”
“While we are not near that level yet, we are seeing a strong and rising demand for our wholesale and retail customers who appreciate that traditional grinding on demand can result in costly waste, extra grinders and stale product in specialty lines,” French said.
Pod Pack Australia has more than tripled the capacity of its manufacturing plant in Silverwater to cater for the demand.
The newly expanded plant is now home to three process and packaging machines, each capable of producing between 100kg to several tonnes of pods.
Aside from the rise in demand, climate change may soon have an impact on the price of coffee beans.
Brazil, responsible for production of one-third of the world’s coffee beans has been experiencing abnormally hot and dry weather conditions, causing a loss between three and 30 percent of coffee bean crops.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the losses have seen a 55 percent increase in the cost of Arabica coffee.