Meira: Bio-based coffee packaging with 45% reduced carbon footprint

With 59% of European coffee launches over the past year featuring some kind of ethically grown or environmentally friendly claim (1), producers are responding to rising sustainability considerations. Consumers demand transparency and coffee manufacturers want to reassure them that they can enjoy their daily cup, with minimal impact on the environment.

One such brand demonstrating efforts to reduce the impact of sourcing, roasting and packaging coffee is Meira, a leading Finnish coffee producer. Its new coffee range, Vallilan Paahtimo, offers a more sustainable cup, inside and out. The coffee beans are sustainably grown, single origin and come in Amcor's AmLite aluminium-free packaging, containing bio-based PE derived from sugar cane.

A leading Finnish coffee producer and part of Massimo Zanetti Beverage Group, Meira Oy is the perfect example of an innovative and sustainable roastery. The company launched its first Fairtrade, organic coffee in 1999, and was one of the first to offer it in 500g packages.

Today, in their Helsinki-based roastery, Meira recycles coffee waste into biogas and will achieve CO2 emission reductions of around 77 tonnes per year.

To find out more about Meira’s latest coffee line and their switch to a more sustainable coffee bag packaging alternative, Amcor’s Coffee Marketing Manager, Giorgio Dini, interviewed the Meira Coffee team.

Giorgio Dini: Vallilan Paahtimo is a great coffee option for the sustainably conscious consumer. Tell us more about why you decided to create this range?

Marleena Bask, Strategy and Sustainability Director, Meira: At Meira, responsibility and sustainability guide our daily operations. We have worked hard to increase our waste recycling rate to reach 80% and our goal is to halve our greenhouse gas emissions by 2022.

Our ambitious coffee development team created Vallilan Paahtimo coffee series to offer our customers a product that reflects these values. From the roasting process to the flexible packaging it comes in, we are proud of this innovation; our customers know that they are making a high quality, more sustainable choice.

The Amcor team immediately understood the concept of our new coffee line. Together, we worked to create a coffee pouch that embodied the spirit of the product by taking the environment into account.

GD: Can you tell me more about what makes this coffee line more sustainable?

Eriika Reiss, Brand and Category Manager Coffee, Meira: We are focused on ethics and environmental welfare throughout the entire coffee journey. The coffee is sourced from Rainforest Alliance and UTZ-certified farms in Honduras and Uganda. In Honduras, many families’ main income comes from their coffee farms, and a lack of education is a root cause of poverty there. As part of creating our Vallilan Paahtimo line, we also set up a charity project in Honduras to support the development of a pre-school and elementary school.

On the packaging designs front, we worked closely with Amcor to minimize the product’s carbon footprint. The Amcor team provided us with all the facts to understand the full carbon footprint of our packaging and identify opportunities for environmental performance improvement. Our next step towards more sustainable packaging was to move to a metal-free barrier alternative and replace standard fossil-based PE with bio-based PE derived from sugar cane. Combining bio-based PE with Amcor's AmLite solution was the perfect packaging choice for our new coffee line.

GD: Why did you decide to make the switch to bio-based, aluminum free packaging?

Riikka Katajainen, Procurement manager, Meira: Our goal was to reduce our climate impact. Bio-based materials are renewable, which means they can be grown again. This is compared to traditional polymers, made from depletable fossil resources that contribute to exhausting the limited resources on the planet. Using bio-based resources lowers carbon footprint.

The source materials that we use are certified by Bonsucro. The Bonsucro Production Standard addresses key sustainability issues specifically related to the sugarcane sector such as farming and milling technical efficiencies, health and safety conditions of workers, protection of lands with high biodiversity, and engagement with local communities.

Replacing aluminium is particularly important to exceed modern consumer expectations for a quality product with sustainability credentials, and the packaging reflects this.

By introducing the new materials for the packaging of our coffee line, we have reduced its carbon footprint by 45% (2).

Amcor’s AmLite barrier technology was first created in 2015 to provide metal-free high barrier packaging that significantly reduces the packaging’s carbon footprint. The new generation of AmLite addresses the key challenge facing coffee brands: to increase sustainability performance while preserving the aroma and sensory experience essential to consumer satisfaction. Read more here.

GD: How easy was it to make the change?

Eemil Ristaniemi, Coffee Product Development Specialist: When we presented the concept of our new coffee range to the Amcor team, they immediately understood our need for a package that embodied the spirit of the product by taking the environment into account. We share similar operating values and goals around sustainability, which has made our partnership a great fit.

The implementation process was simple; we did not have to change our machinery to switch to the new materials. With Amcor’s help, we were also able to reduce any obsolete material and thus reduce waste, by optimizing the packaging size for the production line.

For us, it is crucial that the production, quality and product safety of our coffee are preserved and this change has not affected our production capacity.

GD: You have ambitious sustainability goals. What’s next for Meira?

Marleena Bask, Strategy and Sustainability Director, Meira: The three core pillars of our operations are to create responsible products and services, to take care of the well-being of our employees, supply chain partners and customers, and to protect the environment through our supply chain.

We’re continuing to push forward to meet our sustainability goals and we are currently exploring how to introduce metal-free, bio-based packaging for our other products too.

If you want to find out more about Amcor’s metal free, bio-based solutions for the coffee industry, contact us and a member of our team will be in touch to discuss the best options to suit your needs.

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(1) Mintel – A year of innovation in Coffee, 2020
(2) Comparison based on PETP/ALU/PE to OPP/PETP/Bio-PE. Cradle to grave comparison.