We tell you about our new bags & latest packaging choices.
Exciting things have been happening at 200 Degrees this year, from our 10 year anniversary to launching brand new coffee bags.
After 10 years, we’ve given our brown craft paper bags an important upgrade. Here’s how it happened.
The Short Story
Our goal was to make improvements to our packaging; still delicious coffee - we just wanted to do things a little bit better. The criteria was:
- keep coffee fresh (easy to reseal at home & mechanism to protect coffee quality)
- use material that’s as sustainable as possible
- allow sustainable disposal for customers (recyclable or compostable)
Meet the new bag:
- resealable zip and one-way-valve (won’t let oxygen in but allows coffee to degas)
- fully recyclable LDPE4 material
- QR code to help you get the best out of your beans
- new design to reflect our 10 year anniversary
The Full Story
All year we’ve been talking about bags: the idea was ending up with something that would keep the coffee as fresh as possible for as long as possible. Another big topic was the kind of material we were going to use.
Choosing materials
From early this year we met with suppliers, talked to packaging companies, ventured out of the Roast House, looked at lots of bags, researched as much as we could, and finally landed on LDPE4 - low density polythene. This material is strong, durable and 100% recyclable (often turned into things like bin bags, floor tiles, furniture and envelopes).
It’s important for us to say that we’re not claiming to be sustainable packaging experts.
When it comes to how we package our coffee, what we’re trying to do is make sure that whatever we do next, is better than what we’ve done previously. This meant choosing new packaging that was more eco-friendly than what we’d had before (despite looking pretty recyclable from the outside, our old bags had a foil and plastic lining).
This is how to properly dispose of our new LDPE4 coffee bags when they come to their end of use:
- check if your Local Authority accepts LDPE4 as kerbside recycling
- if LDPE4 is accepted in your area place the coffee bag in your kerbside recycling bin
- If you’re in an area that does not accept LDPE4 as kerbside recycling, you can recycle the coffee bag at your local supermarket
Also, if your Local Authority mentions any of the following, you’ll be able to recycle our coffee bags at home:
- bread bags
- frozen food bags
- squeezable bottles (like hand cream tubes)
- bubble wrap - if specifically mentioned
Compostable Vs. Recyclable Coffee Bags
In all honesty, the search for sustainable coffee packaging has been a minefield of buzzwords, conflicting theories, and less-than-ideal solutions.
There’s no such thing as the perfect packaging in the coffee world - not yet, anyway - and we’ve gone around in circles discussing whether we should have compostable or recyclable packaging.
In the end, we decided to not go down the compostable route since we questioned whether people could genuinely home compost.
Composting is great in terms of disintegrating something into nothing, but we weren’t sure how accessible it was to those living in flats or without gardens. We wanted to be realistic - not everyone has a compost bin and people are probably not about to start having one just for coffee bags.
Recycling here and now seemed like the best route forward to catch more people and give them the option to reuse that product.
Rather than it being the perfect solution or end-point, we see all this as a stepping stone in our ongoing programme of trying to be sustainable.
What Will Happen To The Old Bags?
We’ll use them up (we’re sure a few empty ones will be framed & join a 200 Degrees memorabilia collection or two).
What Do The New Bags Mean For Me, The Customer?
The same great coffee you love, now in recyclable packaging with a fresh new look.
At the time of writing this, all of our retail products are in the new packaging - with wholesale soon to follow. If you're signed up to get our freshly roasted beans delivered to your door - look out for the new bags as they are still letterbox friendly.
Thanks For Supporting Us
As we mentioned - a lot of new and exciting things have been happening behind the scenes at 200 Degrees. As well as new bags, we’re also launching Nespresso compatible pods and teamed-up with the coffee pod recycling serving Podback (more on this to come).
Thanks for keeping up with us over the years - whether you are picking up a bag of beans for the first time or are a long-standing 200’er, we hope you love them.
