The inventor of Keurig “K-cups” regrets inventing them, according to recent interviews, and a local entrepreneur hopes to be part of the solution to the avalanche of waste they create.
Ken Crause has been in the loose leaf tea business for 14 years with his Busch Tea and this year he stepped into the coffee industry when he realized there is a big market for soft, tea-like pouches for coffee makers.
“We wanted to start selling coffee but I discovered the problem with K-cups and started looking for alternatives,” he said, referring to the K-cups company’s own figures that they sell 30 billion a year and aim to produce recyclable ones by 2020.
Crause said the soft pod is not new, but until now there hasn’t been a high quality brewer, with hotels often using cheap, single serving brewers that don’t get the most out of the kind of quality coffee he sells.
In January CrauseCo, based in the Parksville industrial park, began marketing nine of its own custom coffee roasts and 15 tea blends in soft pods.
He also went a step further and introduced a subscription program to provide the high quality brewer, which he called at least as good as a Keurig machine, free with a home delivery of coffee and/or tea.
“You can just buy the brewer and coffee or tea whenever you want, or you can sign a two-year contract like a cell phone and get the machine for free,” he said from his little shop surrounded by a wide assortment of products, where he’s quick to offer samples to customers.
They then deliver coffee and tea pods directly to your home or business.
Crause, who came to Canada from Zimbabwe in 1973, specializes in rooibos teas from southern Africa and particularly stresses their health benefits.
He markets a couple brands of “Willpower” teas with hoodia, a popular weight loss plant and matcha, which is considered a very healthy tea variety.
The new company brings in custom roasted coffee and loose tea and packages and markets them out of Parksville. Most of their customers are currently in the local area with some online customers coming from across the country and into the U.S.
Crause said that tea is actually more popular than coffee worldwide, and is currently the world’s fasted growing beverage with sales increasing around seven per cent a year. “It’s really popular among young people because people love the health benefits,” he said.
Anyone interested in their products or subscription service can visit www.crauseco.com or stop by the shop at #3-1003 Herring Gull Road in the Parksville industrial park.
