Just found out today that Coke wants to jump into the homemade market by partnering with Keurig for their Keurig Cold system.
I'm not seeing the appeal. You want Coke at home? In single servings? Oh, yeah, that's right, it comes in cans, now. I almost forgot.
I can see the appeal of the original Keurig coffee maker. You can't bottle/can fresh, hot coffee and keep it on the shelf, and if you want a special blend just for you, you don't want to make a whole pot.
With soda, there's really not much difference from fresh made, and you drink it cold so it's easier to just pull it out of the fridge. Now if you want gourmet, or you want to avoid specific ingredients, or if you want to "save the planet" by not buying so many bottles/cans, then you make your own. None of those selling points really factor into the Keurig model.
If I want Coke, I'll buy a can of Coke, and if I want gourmet, I'm not going to buy Coke. So no single serve pods there.
If I want to avoid specific ingredients, a single serve pod isn't going to do much for me, unless they start selling Mexican Coke single serve pods, but then how are they going to pack all that real sugar into a single serve pod? How big are these pods?
If I want to save the planet by not buying so many bottles/cans, then maybe the single serve pods make sense. But again, how big are these pods, what is the likelihood that a single serve pod is going to be as recyclable as a soda can? I can see reduced shipping costs due to weight, but that's going to be off-set on the consumer end by the price of the countertop gadget, cost of CO2, and the cost of the premium pod. Currently aren't K-cup pods a little less than $1 per serving. Let's see, I will likely be able to buy a 12-pack of Coke pods for around $10 if I'm lucky, or I can buy a 12 pack of cans for less than $5. Which one am I going to spring for? Hmmm....
Nice job, Green Mountain Coffee. You and Coke have just agreed to bring homemade soda full circle. It went from economical, eco-friendly, and possibly healthier than store-bought to expensive, wasteful, and a wash on the health side.
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You must forget about the reduction in packaging materials and plastics. This is a genuinely important topic.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, someday, devices like the Keurig will be common (and have reasonably priced supplies) and we can drastically reduce our negative impact on our environment. I understand the negativity towards these machines today, but hopefully in the future the costs will be more reasonable !
That is a good point, and I do recognize the reduction of the carbon footprint from transporting less weight in the form of water, but for the amount of sugar in soda, I don't see it as significant a reduction as the coffee pods are.
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