Dive Brief:
- In the U.S., coffee consumption is expected to drop this year by more than 1%, or nearly 300,000 60-kilogram bags of coffee beans, says the USDA in its recently released coffee report.
- At the same time, coffee pod sales have grown exponentially, by 133,710% since 2000, according to Euromonitor data, thanks in particular to increased sales of coffee pod machines like those from Keurig Green Mountain.
- Coffee pods are more efficient than traditional coffee machines, and as a result, coffee drinkers who use coffee pods are consuming less coffee, and thus fewer coffee beans.
Dive Insight:
For companies like Keurig which create coffee pod machines, like the Keurig 2.0, and single-serving coffee pods, like Keurig's K-Cups, this boom in sales is astronomical.
While Americans are drinking less coffee overall, they are drinking less artisanal coffee as well. This is due to America's apparent preference for "worse," cheaper coffee, according to data from Euromonitor. The rise of coffee pods isn't doing much good for artisanal whole bean coffee either as Americans turn to ground coffee in droves to get their fix.