The $4 billion coffee pod business faces its biggest threat yet

Lavazza’s newest single-serve machine is brewing up a new promise to coffee lovers: less plastic waste. This week, the 131-year-old Italian coffee brand debuted Tablì, a 100 coffee tab that has no plastic capsule, individual wrapping, or coating. The tabs are a result of five years of RD from a team of trained baristas and other experts whose primary goal was to develop a more sustainable coffee pod that won’t fall apart when touched and still matches the flavor and creamy consistency that’s in Lavazza’s other espresso offerings. Daniele Foti, VP of marketing for Lavazza North America, says the new innovation aims to bridge the gap between the convenience and consistency of single-serve coffee pods with the more classic, multisensory experience of using ground or bean coffee, which he contends coffee fans still crave. “There are structural limitations of the single-serve systems related to what you can actually experience around coffee, before and during the preparation of it,” Foti tells Fast Company. Taking on the coffee pod giants Four in ten American adults have a single-cup brewer in their homes, according to the trade group the National Coffee Association, and Lavazza says nearly 9.4 billion single-serve coffee pods are sold annually in the U.S. market alone. The rising popularity of single-serve coffee has created coffee behemoths like Keurig, which generates 4 billion in U.S. sales each year, and Nestlé’s Nespresso, whose annual global revenue totals 8.2 billion. Lavazza is far smaller, aiming to double revenue to 1 billion in the North American market by 2029 from 2024 levels. Lavazza’s 100 coffee tabs can be made only with the new Tablì machine, sold for 99.99 in a preorder bundle offering that includes the device, a milk frother, and a 60-count variety pod collection. The Tablì machine is sold in three colors: graphite black, sand white, and walnut brown. The machines are capable of making five different blends, including espresso, double espresso, and decaf. Coffee drinkers want more than convenience A multi-decade evolution has changed what consumers expect from quality coffee, beginning with mainstream grocery brands like Folgers and Maxwell House, and later expanding to lattes and more unique flavored beverages sold by coffee giants like Starbucks. Preferences have evolved further, with the focus on craftsmanship and unique roasts sold by Blue Bottle Coffee, Stumptown, and other upstarts. More recently companies have been energized by the so-called fourth wave of coffee, with TikTok-driven trends around all the unique ways coffee can be made at home, and a greater emphasis on science and technology. “With the explosion of specialty coffee, people want to get closer to the coffee, not only in terms of taste but also the possibility to smell it and touch it,” Foti says. The sustainability challenge While remaining consistently popular with consumers, the single-serve coffee pod has been wrapped up in criticism that evokes the sustainability conversation around plastic straws. There’s been far more progress on the straws, which in recent years have been either completely removed or greatly deemphasized at major retailers including Starbucks and Whole Foods. “You might be the last person in the office to use the coffee machine and there’s 30 pods in the bin, and they’re kind of gross and messy,” Jon Moss, managing director of L.E.K. Consulting, tells Fast Company. “It creates a jarring reaction for the user, and for some reason that’s led to an elevated consciousness of the relative sustainability of the product.” The challenge for brands like Lavazza, Moss says, is that any effort to remove plastic wrapping from the single-serve pods needs to still be at parity—or better—than older systems when it comes to the quality of the coffee and durability on the shelf. Sustainability initiatives are also an added expense for brands like Lavazza, whose Tablì innovation actually stems from the 2020 acquisition of an Italian startup called Caffemotive. RD is expensive; Lavazza says its Tablì system required more than 15 patents. Winning over the next generation of coffee drinkers Studies have shown that Gen Z and millennials are willing to pay a bit more for sustainable packaging and prefer when brands use recyclable materials. “What I love about Gen Z and younger audiences is the importance they give to sustainability or responsible brands, and brands that speak to them in that perspective is higher than, let’s say, older generations like me,” Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen, global CEO of Nespresso, tells Fast Company. Nespresso’s original single-serve coffee pods are made with 80 recycled aluminum. Those used by the company’s Vertuo system, which debuted in 2014 for the North American market to brew coffee in five different cup sizes, are made from 85 recycled materials. But much more of Nespresso’s sustainability efforts focus on what consumers can’t directly see. Loeschen says roughly half the carbon footprint from a cup of coffee comes from farming operations, with only 10 tied directly to packaging. Some 83 of the coffee farms that Nespresso works with directly use regenerative agriculture practices, which focus on increasing biodiversity, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and promoting soil health. To tell that story to consumers, Nespresso will debut a new regenerative seal in 2026 with the nonprofit organization Rainforest Alliance, which will promote the sourcing of coffee from regenerative farms in Costa Rica and Mexico. Nespresso has also invested in local recycling centers so that its capsules can be collected and processed, similar to other plastics, glass, and metal. “We have an ambitious goal to get to 60 recycling by 2030,” says Loeschen. That would be a marked increase to Nespresso’s capsule recycling rate of 35 last year. “We know we can do better; it is a pain point for many consumers.”