Koppie’s Sustainable Coffee Innovation – Summary
- After meat and cacao, coffee has the highest carbon footprint.
- WWF links major deforestation in tropical areas between 2005 and 2017.
- Koppie makes a bean-free alternative to coffee using chickpeas, peas, and fermented beans.
- Koppie’s lifecycle emissions are one kilogram per kilogram of product
- Hybrid coffee blends to be produced in 1,000-tonne quantities by 2026.
Daan Raemdonck, Koppie’s co-founder and Belgian native, loves his daily coffee ritual.
He never realized that despite working for Alpro’s alternative milks company, Alpro most recently, as their marketing director, the environmental impact was significant.
He recalls, “I read an article published in 2018 by Oxford University which analysed the carbon footprint of food.” To my surprise, the top three were coffee, cacao, and meat.
It was a real eye-opener for me. This topic is important to me because I worked at Alpro. [but] Then I found out that there was also coffee and cacao. That completely struck me.”
Raemdonck became curious and began researching the subject. I quickly discovered that coffee and the future supply were of great concern. According to WWF for instance, from 2005-2017, more than 80 percent of deforestation in the tropics was concentrated on just six commodities.
These concerns have already led to a number of “beanless” blends that use plants such as mushrooms, carob, and chicory combined with caffeine in order to mimic the aroma and taste of traditional coffee.
Raemdonck saw a gaping hole in the market. “As a coffee lover from mainland Europe, I don’t like instant coffee.” There are few options that let you brew your coffee fresh, and there’s almost none that allows you to make espresso.
So, I thought of this idea. There must be another way to go about this.
How to make a “moonshot”
Raemdonck wanted to find a coffee substitute that was similar in appearance, flavor, and behavior.
We often “dig something up, roast it, and sort of pray it tastes like espresso.” When it’s obvious that something doesn’t taste like coffee, we add things in hopes of making the mixture taste better. We took a different approach.”
Raemdonck instead turned to his small team of bioengineers for help in identifying “a bean which could be used like coffee”, using the aromas produced during the roasting process.
It’s obvious that no single ingredient has all of the ingredients today [of coffee] “We thought we’d start by finding an ingredient with some of these elements, and then adapt it as we go.”
He says the team tested everything, including fruits, nuts, and vegetables. The team tried everything from fruits, vegetables, roots and nuts, he says.
We adjust the taste of everything inside the chickpea, and we add all flavouring components to make it taste like coffee. It still remains a bean. It behaves almost like coffee after we have fermented it. On coffee machines, you can roast the coffee. “You can grind and brew like coffee.”
The flavour profile is still lacking. Pulses do not contain chlorogenic acid (a polyphenol naturally found in coffee beans). You cannot ferment the chlorogenic acid in non-GMO strains. We can’t close that gap. We’re close to achieving that, even though one of the basic ingredients is missing.
The single-ingredient option has a significantly lower carbon footprint.
Based on our latest lifecycle analysis, we estimate that our CO2 emissions equivalent per kilogram are one kilogram. This is a very low number. “Even the best coffee will be double that and we’ll find the average coffee to cost 10 times more.”
In stealth mode
Koppie has emerged after two years of being in the shadows.
Raemdonck admits that it has faced many challenges to get here. A taste test conducted with experts in the industry two years ago was a failure. Aside from the flavours, it has been extremely challenging to mimic the physical characteristics of coffee beans for espresso or capsule formats. Even if the product tastes similar and smells like it, getting physical extraction parameters correct is extremely difficult. Any espresso machine up until the last six months would simply block [the product].”
The summer was a milestone for the startup.
We conducted a blind tasting with experts in coffee against other alternatives available here in Europe. We already outperformed the comparative group. Then we realized we had something.
The company has closed its first round of funding in June. Nucleus Capital, Mudcake Rockstart and other investors participated. Cash will be spent on pilot collaborations, product development, and product scaling up. The company plans to reach 1,000 tonnes of production by 2026.
Koppie, in addition to the filter or espresso format, is now also available as liquid concentrate. This can be used for RTD coffee drinks, desserts, and other applications. Now the team wants to create an instant version.
Raemdonck says, “The last hurdle is commercial traction. Finding our first customer.” He explains that the brand wants to be positioned as an alternative, not a replacement, for coffee. The beauty of our product is that both coffee companies and retailers can buy the dried fermented bean. With that, the coffee companies can blend it with their own beans, roast them together, ground it and package it.
Raemdonck hasn’t completely ruled out the possibility of adding other ingredients to Koppie in future. We might add more ingredients to reduce the gap. We’re still aiming at the moonshot. We’ll continue to progress towards this goal if it is possible to grow just one bean.