An interview with the most experienced team of manufacturing coffee sealing and filling machines at AFPAK is revealed to unravel more details on the popularity of coffee capsules
The interviewee and his role:
Allen Cao, who is the coffee sealing and filling machine designer at AFPAK
Q: The reasons behind the popularity of coffee capsules or instant coffee.
Allen:
There are a few reasons why coffee capsules are so popular or why there are more and more people interested in instant coffee.
Convenience: By using coffee capsules, anyone could get a cup of fresh coffee within 1 minute. All he or she needs is a small coffee machine and a coffee capsule at home or in the office. Especially during the pandemic, people tend to work from home more often. With less social activity, a quick drink of instant coffee is much more preferred. Besides, the coffee capsules are filled and sealed by specially designed machines which ensures freshness and longer shelf life. With nitrogen flushed during the filling and sealing process, the taste stays.
The simplicity of cleaning: It is just a small coffee machine with coffee capsules. It does not take anyone’s great effort to clean the machine.
Low cost: Each capsule is priced at an affordable price which is about 0.3-0.5 USD per capsule.
Variety of flavors: there are so many different kinds of tastes in the market. I am pretty sure anyone would find the flavor they like.
Environmental-friendly material: the capsules have gone through different stages from simply containing the coffee powder by using any type of material to adopting environmental-friendly material. Easily degradable materials are applied to produce the coffee capsules.
Q: Among all types of capsules, which one is the best-selling? And why is that?
Allen:
In the market, Nespresso is definitely the best-selling currently in the world and its sales of it are still increasing each year. Nespresso has a history dating back to 1948, which indicates that Nespresso has undergone over 50 years of development. It has contributed greatly to the rise of the instant coffee business and hence the thriving of the manufacturing of coffee capsule filling and sealing machines.
Every year, there will be new flavors developed and come out, and hundreds of flavors of Nespresso exist in the world. The diversity of the flavors of the Nespresso coffee capsules is the main reason for its popularity, while the constant innovation prevents this heat from being subsided. As I mentioned early, anyone could find one flavor they love in coffee capsules. Maybe I could also say that anyone would find one flavor from Nespresso coffee capsules they love.
Q: Are Nespresso the most popular in all markets? Or there are some differences?
Allen:
Yes, there are some differences. I guess it is hard to let Nespresso win all the markets. Right? The fundamental reasons behind that are competition between coffee capsule suppliers and the preference of the local market, namely localization. As Nespresso has developed so fast and cultivated a lot of coffee lovers to form a habit of drinking instant coffee. Or in other words, a lot of traditional coffee lovers or coffee lovers of the new generation who are more likely to accept new stuff and enjoy a faster pace of life become fans of coffee capsules. This brings a great opportunity for business and profit making. Therefore, a lot of newcomers to the coffee capsules business would like to seize this opportunity to get a share of this ever-growing cake, build a business and make a fortune out of it. So a lot of competition appears that a lot of brands of coffee capsules come out.
For instance, K cups based in the USA has grown to be one of the biggest coffee capsule suppliers in the world and it is the No. 1 in the USA. One of its most popular flavors is Americano. They are saying that if you drink a cup of Americano from K cups and eat he donut at the same time, your day is just made.
Besides K cups’ popularity in the USA, in the North American market, there is a famous system of coffee capsules developed by Nespresso which is called Nespresso Vertuoline. It is like a customized system, especially for the North American market.
Further, even in the European market where Nespresso stemmed from, Nespresso is not the most popular. According to some research, Lavazza capsules are more popular there. The main reason is that there are a lot of different sizes of Lavazza in the market that can meet all types of demand. Myself, I am a deep coffee lover and I prefer large cups of coffee. I could drink a lot of cups, over 1 liter each day. So Lavazza capsules are my favorite.
Italian coffee capsules are the top competitors to Nespresso. There is a well-known company called GAGGIA which has developed a special but popular coffee capsule system, the Caffitaly. This old company never stopped innovation. They carry out a lot of research each year to identify the different types of demands in the market. And they will adjust or create new flavors to meet the new kind of demand for coffee capsule flavors.
The system is like this: Caffitaly coffee capsules have two microfiltration back pressures above and below. High pressure of 15 bar is generated by the pump, which then penetrates the capsule. First micro press the filter coffee grounds. The pressure received by this filter is evenly distributed, which ensures that the brewed coffee has the same taste as espresso. Because the pressure will be brought in through the upper microfiltration equalizer, and it will be brought in very evenly. This pressure plus the secondary microfiltration back pressure can make the coffee powder brew a more mellow and rich taste.
Q: Taking manufacturing into consideration, what do you think main differences between all those popular coffee capsules you mentioned above?
Allen:
The differences might lie in the weight of the granule or powder inside the coffee capsules, the size, the outlook or design of the coffee capsules, the flavor of the capsules, the packaging style, the way of brewing the coffee capsules, and others. Let us go over the major differences one by one.
The weight of granules or powder inside the coffee capsules:
Different brands have different weight standards which stem from the customer’s demand in a different region. It could be 8 grams of coffee powder inside the capsuled for the Caffitaly, for instance.
The size:
As I mentioned before, I prefer the large size Lavazza because of its large size which could meet my daily coffee consumption requirement. But in general, smaller size are more popular. And different coffee capsule providers would divide coffee lovers into different groups such as heavy coffee lovers and light coffee lovers.
The outlook or design of the coffee capsules:
There are cup-shaped coffee capsules, and there are UFO-shaped coffee capsules. In general, those types of special styles of structure are created to target young coffee lovers. Those various structures of coffee capsules are customized.
The flavor of the capsules:
Even for just Nespresso, there are hundreds of flavors. The richness of flavors originated that different countries have different cultures and their preference towards coffee tastes are totally different. Espresso without sugar would be someone’s favorite, while cappuccino or latte is someone else favorite. It is that different demand, resulting in the big brands never stopping innovation of new flavors.
The packaging style:
This is quite simple. Some boxes are packed with 5 coffee capsules and some are packed with 10 coffee capsules. I think this is based on the purchasing power of customers.
The way of brewing:
It depends on the brewing machine also. Water temperature and the time the water runs through the coffee powder so to carry out the flavor would affect greatly the taste of the coffee.
Q: In which ways could AFPAK filling and sealing machine help businesses sell more coffee capsules?
Allen:
Actually, it is very easy to start a coffee capsule filling and sealing business so to sell to local shops or supermarkets their coffee capsules. All you need is a bit of investment to buy a high-quality coffee capsule filling and sealing machine that AFPAK could provide.
AFPAK coffee capsule filling and sealing machines are designed by well-experienced engineers. AFPAK adopts food safety grade materials and well-known brands to the machines to ensure high-efficiency filling and sealing.
There are a lot of typed of coffee capsule filling and sealing machines offered by AFPAK for start-ups, small businesses and large businesses. There are one-lane machines such as RN1S COFFEE CAPSULE FILLING SEALING MACHINE which is low-cost for new or small businesses. There are 4/6/8 lanes machines for medium to large businesses to greatly increase their productivity in the workshop.
During the filling and sealing, the nitrogen will be flushed so to ensure a long shelf life of the coffee capsules.
Moreover, to meet any type of demand on production, AFPA offers coffee capsule filling and sealing machines for Nespresso, Lavazza, Dolce Gusto, K cups, and others. Also, AFPAK offers cups at competitive prices so it is not necessary for customers to buy cups from other suppliers.
AFPAK aims at being the best partner for customers to meet all their requirements and help them grow and lead in the market.