The Importance of Coffee Packaging

Article Summary:

Effective coffee packaging balances freshness, durability, sustainability, and presentation. By tailoring your packaging design and materials to your product type and distribution needs, you can protect quality, appeal to your target audience, and strengthen your brand’s reputation.

The Importance of Coffee Packaging 

Creating the best packaging for your product and consumer needs can be a long R&D process. This article is meant to help you understand the variables that impact coffee packaging so you can make the best decisions for you and your company. There are four main categories this article will cover: types of coffee, bag type, freshness and material.  

Coffee type: 

Whole bean: One-way valves are typically used to vent the carbon dioxide and other gases that are released from the roasted coffee and keep it as fresh as possible.  
Ground Coffee: A one-way valve or vacuum sealed packaging is used in this scenario to help keep the coffee fresh as long as you can. Ground coffee is more susceptible to degradation, as soon as it is ground more surface area is exposed to the air and will oxidize and stale at a quicker rate.  

Bag Types: 

Figure 1. Bag options from kimecopak packaging 

There are four main bag types that include stand up pouches, flat bottom, side fold bags and four-seal/gusset bags. Depending on your needs such as shelving space, online sales, warehouse facility, this will all impact your decision-making when it comes to packaging.  

Stand up pouches and flat bottom bags are able to stand up on their own and give a little bit of extra space to fit more coffee beans in the bag. Four sealed bags are less common in third wave coffee but are often used in grocery stores. Gusset bags have a specialized construction and allow for maximum storage and wider surface area for branding.  

Maintaining Freshness: 

Valves: One way exhaust valve is very common in the specialty coffee industry to keep coffee as fresh as possible. This allows carbon dioxide to escape as the coffee sits without allowing external gas into the packaging.  

Vacuum sealed: Some roasters prefer a vacuum sealed option for their clients. This is often paired with coffee with a high price per lb. such as Cup of Excellence lots or roasters that sell lots based on the year and producer (like in the wine industry).  

Reusable sealing: Type of reusable sealing is important, most often a zipper is used to keep the coffee fresh for consumers and still make use of one-way valves. Non-bag packaging like reusable jars and tins are also another option for those looking to support an environmentally friendly mission.  

Nitrogen flushing: A process that preserves food and releases the oxygen inside the packaging with nitrogen. Oxygen causes oxidation which leads food to stale or go bad. Food companies often utilize this practice to make the product last longer.  

You can invest in nitrogen flushing equipment, hire a third party to package your product or omit it all together. If your product does not have a long transit time to shelf or high turnover, you might consider skipping investing in this process.  

On the other hand, if you have a wide reach of distributors, distribute to grocery stores and have long transit to shelf times, it might be worth looking into to improve consumer experience.  

Materials: 

Multi-Layer material: This is a common cost-effective alternative that uses up to three layers of lamination. Often used to protect the lifespan of coffee, two main layers make up the packaging like a low-density polyethylene (LDPE) or polyethylene (PE) along with an ethylene vinyl alcohol foil lining (EVOH). 

The layers serve different purposes, the inner layers typically can absorb UV rays and protect the coffee from moisture and oxygen. The outer layer provides structural support and printability to the packaging.  

Kraft Paper: An environmentally friendly option for companies that want to invest. Kraft paper is paired with a PLA film that supports biodegradation. 

Figure 2. Coffee packaging photos courtesy of Canny Creative

Things to consider:  

Experimental design: While you may want to explore out of the box packaging, keep in mind if you want to expand to wholesale clients, especially grocery stores, there are standard measurements for shelves in stores. If your packaging doesn’t fit well into the shelf, it may impact if a consumer purchases your coffee or not.  

Same goes for sturdiness, if the packaging doesn’t hold up in transit or by employees restocking, a crumpled bag might be less likely to be purchased by the consumer. 

Headspace: When filling up the bags you purchase, a certain amount of headspace or space between the seal and coffee beans is needed to keep coffee fresh. As coffee degasses and lets out carbon dioxide the bag will expand. The extra gas needs to have a little bit of extra wiggle room I order to escape properly and keep it from deforming the bag.  

Green Coffee: Coffee that went through proper screening during processing can last up to a year off harvest before aged flavors start to set in. You can delay the aging process by practicing proper storage conditions. When the quality of your green coffee lasts, the quality of your roasted coffee in turn will last longer. Some variables to consider are: 

• Humidity  
• Temperature 
• Packaging type 
• Shelving 
• Pest control  
• Proper shelving 

Check out our full article here on common green coffee storage mistakes and solutions.