Recyclable cold brew cans or flexible RTD pouches: Which is best for your brand?
Offering cold brew coffee is essential for today’s coffee brands. Coffee consumers globally, and younger shoppers especially, expect exciting new products, menu variety, and convenient beverages to match their aspirational, on-the-go lifestyles.
When it comes to choosing the right packaging for your cold brew products, recyclable cold brew cans or flexible RTD pouches make the most sense for single-serve or ready-to-drink portions. Both are sustainable, recyclable, and highly customizable when sourced from the right packaging partner.
Each type of packaging has unique advantages, which you should consider when planning your cold brew formats. Read on for a detailed breakdown of the pros and cons of different cold brew packaging.
Why is it so important to stock cold brew products?
The cold brew coffee segment is the fastest growing within the broader coffee market and, indeed, amongst food and beverage trends more broadly.
Different research groups present slightly different data across current market value, forecasted value, and growth rate, but the consensus is an overwhelmingly positive outlook. Fortune Business Insights estimated that global cold brew revenue amounted to $3.16 billion in 2024 and expects this number to exceed $16 billion within the next eight years.
These figures represent a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 22% year on year. Other strong coffee-related growth areas like specialty coffee, coffee capsules, and ready-to-drink coffee barely come close – CAGRs of 10.6%, 7.6% and 5.3%, respectively.
Of course, cold brew coffee is a comparatively new phenomenon, only truly becoming a widespread menu option in the mid-2010s. Nevertheless, coffee capsules were notoriously slow to take off, specialty coffee has been growing steadily for over twenty years, and ready-to-drink coffee, also a more modern development, does not exhibit the same level of bullish growth.
When considering the historical data and conducting a comparative analysis, the message is clear: cold brew coffee holds enormous potential.
Cold brew, whether in recyclable cold brew cans or flexible RTD pouches, benefits from both direct and indirect relationships with other key growth drivers, including RTD coffee more broadly, specialty coffee in some instances, and macro health and wellness trends. Its unique ability to satisfy multiple consumer aspirational purchasing motivations is key to its success.
Cold brew is easy to manufacture at scale, can be served black thanks to naturally lower acidity and bitterness, is well suited to long-life ambient storage, and is a pliable foundation for flavour variations.
As a coffee business, whether an RTD manufacturer or an independent coffee shop, offering cold brew to your customers is a surefire way to attract new customers, develop new point-of-sale opportunities, and drive innovation.
What is the best format to package cold brew coffee?
As mentioned, cold brew coffee, manufactured with the right facilities and hardware, is well suited to packaging for a long shelf life. This helps coffee brands convert more customers through other sales channels like convenience stores, supermarkets, and retail outlets.
Recyclable aluminium cans are a top option for cold brew packaging. There are several reasons why aluminium is so widely used for beverage packaging—it’s lightweight, easy to work with, highly effective at preserving freshness and flavour over extended periods, and sustainable.
In an article published by MTPak, Brandon Martin, head brewer at Big Watt Beverage Co., said, “The equipment needed to package cold brew becomes more versatile if you use cans rather than plastic or glass bottles. Plus, cans made from aluminium are infinitely recyclable.”
Moreover, aluminium recyclable cold brew cans are immensely customizable. Direct laser printing or labelling lets coffee brands use maximum branding real estate to capture audience attention through sleek aesthetics, storytelling, certification symbols, and limited-edition flavours.
Flexible RTD pouches are also a good alternative choice. Unlike recyclable cold brew cans, pouches are more flexible and pliable, more easily packed and stored for transport and stocking, and offer the same level of quality preservation.
Cold brew coffee pouches come in a wider range of sizes compared to recyclable cold brew cans that are generally limited to a maximum of 500 ml capacity. The variety in size is helpful: smaller pouches – 185 ml or 375 ml – are perfect for convenient, single-serve portioning, while larger pouches – up to three litres – are better for multi-serve demands like social gatherings or office spaces.
RTD cold brew pouches are also 100% compostable, which is preferred by the majority of consumers. However, the industry consensus is that aluminium cans are more effectively recycled due primarily to a comparative lack of consumer awareness of home composting processes. With more industry guidance, this is expected to improve.
In summary, recyclable cold brew cans and flexible RTD pouches are great options for coffee businesses to capitalise on cold brew’s growth momentum. Both are highly recyclable, lightweight, pack efficiently, and offer excellent protection against external elements, contamination, and spoiling.
At Cold Brew Pak, we offer recyclable cold brew cans and flexible RTD pouches to our clients seeking to bring sustainably packaged cold brew products to market. Both options are highly customizable. Our services include hot foil stamping, spot glossing, metallic sheen coating, laser-etched tabs, embossed tabs, and more.
Contact our team to begin designing your line of recyclable cold brew cans or flexible RTD pouches today.
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Recyclable cold brew cans
Photos provided by Chale Cold Brew
