Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/491350
48 STiR tea & coffee industry international Martin said BUNN's My Café and the SunCana pod brewer are holding up well in home use and make a great cup of coffee. The $140 BUNN My Café MCU comes with different adapters to brew pods, K-Cups, tea and ground coffee. The SunCana has a convenient water reservoir, said Martin. Roasters are taking note and adding to the selection of coffees. Senseo continues to sell coffee online where a pack of 64 filter pods costs $24.88 (39 cents each). On- line Wolfgang Puck, Marley Coffee and Melitta sell premium pods in the 62mm size. Wolfgang Puck extra bold pods in a 16-count box sell for $7.25 while a 15-ct pack of Marley Jamaican Blue sells for $16.50. Folgers markets to OCS operators and has a retail line for home brewers. Folgers 10-gram pods, individually wrapped in an 18-ct box are priced at $7.49 or 42 cents each at Coffee Wholesale USA and Coffee For Less. The fact that pods are compostable is a big plus as many Keurig users express concern about the sustainability based on the billions discarded capsules in landfills, according to Martin. Pods in food service A retail benchmark of $1.50 per cup for brewed coffee and double that for espresso offers attractive margins for res- taurants, coffee retailers and roasters. At $5.50 a pound for ground coffee and 10 cups per pot, retailers could make a gross profit of $336 per day selling 45 cups per pound and serving 24 pots of coffee. The problem with these calculations is they do not account for waste. A café that brews 24 pots of coffee a day does not actually sell 10 cups per pot because it quickly grows stale, said Melikian. A re- tailer ends up tossing out half the coffee they brew each day, lowering gross profit to $35 per pound. In the example above actual sales after waste are closer to $175 from 5 pounds of coffee. Single-serve pods average 40 cents per 10 gram serving or 45 cups to the pound for a profit of $49.50 per pound with no waste, observes Melikian. At $5.50 per pound wholesale the 10 cents per cup restaurants and cafes pay for roast coffee at first appears the bet- ter deal but with pods there are no grind- ers, no dosing, tamping or waste grounds. Pods reduce labor expense, are less messy and require little training. Roasters can fine-tune blends to specific equipment and mass produce pods inexpensively, in- suring consistency. Many of these same advantages appeal to at-home coffee drinkers. The Internet has made it much easier to find pods which often ship at no charge. Senseo Europe accounts for more than 60% of worldwide pod sales which are still grow- ing 12% per year after 15 years, according to Rabobank's Colbert. Philips Senseo, a single-serve pod ma- chine distributed by DE Master Blend- www.foodnhotelasia.com