Since beginning as a coffee cart over 30 years ago in Auckland, Allpress has grown and expanded throughout New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and the UK.
Allpress was the first New Zealand coffee roaster to use a certified compostable cup in 2011 and has now made their coffee packaging compostable too. Not only is the packaging non-GMO, it has a carbon footprint 75 times less than conventional plastic. The glues, paper, and inks are non-toxic and fully compostable too. The introduction of this compostable packaging will see more than 1.25m bags being diverted from landfills each year.
Allpress says it used to use petroleum-based plastic for its coffee packaging, facing a challenge when making the transition to compostable.
“It’s heavy duty for packaging a beautiful fresh product like coffee but incredibly hard to recycle. Unfortunately, it is cheap, readily available, and is great for protecting coffee and keeping it fresh. Finding a compostable option that could do all of those things was our challenge”.
What happens next?
Allpress’s next stage of sustainability includes end-of-life packaging collection. “Compost services are not readily available to all of our café customers or home coffee drinkers. Our big focus in the short term will be to provide a place for that waste to go. All of our café and roastery spaces have compost bins that can be used for returns. We will provide links to our compost partners who provide collection services for homes and businesses,” says Allpress.
Allpress says it will do all that it can to get the word out and hopes that local government will get behind it too.
Allpress Reusable CupIt has also produced two reusable cups for customers to purchase to take their sustainability even further. One is made from bio-plastic and the other is a limited edition porcelain cup, handmade in Japan.
Creating innovative technology
While striving to reduce their plastic waste, Allpress has also built its own hot air roaster called the ART Roaster (Air Roasting Technology). The technology behind the roaster is that it used convective rather than conductive heat. This means the beans are roasted by being suspended in a stream of hot air. This innovation prevents scorched beans and provides a clean flavour.
Allpress says it rejigged the hot air roaster concept to work for them. “Traditionally hot air roasters were built for big volumes and speed – not flavour. We took the best parts of the technology and re-engineered it to roast specialty coffee with beautiful flavour. We still use our prototype ART Roaster in Auckland and roast on ART in Melbourne, Dunedin, and London.”
An exciting new non-profit coffee is also launching July 6 to support SurfAid. The beans are sourced from one of Allpress’s long-term suppliers in Sumatra. All profits from the coffee with help SurfAid improve health, wellbeing, and self-reliance for people living in isolated regions.
To read more about Allpress’s sustainability or to purchase their coffee, head to their website.
