Understanding the lifecycle of sustainable cold brew coffee cans
Sustainable cold brew coffee cans are one of the most environmentally friendly ways to package cold brew coffee. As RTD coffee continues to become more popular, especially with younger shoppers, making sure the materials you use for packaging your line are sustainable is essential to success.
Alongside bag-in-box cold brew packaging and flexible cold brew pouches, aluminium cans help coffee companies demonstrate their commitment to responsible business practices to existing and new customers before the product is even tried.
Packaging is the first opportunity for companies to resonate with consumers, and you can’t afford to miss out on the chance to make a great first impression.
To learn more about sustainable cold brew coffee cans, we spoke to Tyler Anderson, co-founder of Urban Sailor Coffee in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Why did Urban Sailor Coffee choose to launch RTD sustainable cold brew coffee cans?
Urban Sailor Coffee operates two cafés and a small-batch roastery in their hometown of Salt Lake City after finding its beginnings as a coffee company as a URAL motorcycle sidecar in 2021.
The company emphasises its specialty credentials through a diverse range of coffee products, including single-origins from El Salvador, Ethiopia, Brazil, and Guatemala. In 2024, Urban Sailor decided to add two RTD products to its line-up, citing the growing demand for products like sustainable cold brew coffee cans.
We asked Tyler to share some more insight into the move to RTD.
“The cold brew cans are absolutely growing in popularity here in Salt Lake City,” says Tyler.
“Our partner, Coffee Support, was already doing cans for a few other businesses, and that drove our decision to work with them. We also wanted to consider nitro coffee down the line, and that contributed to our decision to work with Coffee Support, which specialises in cans. I’m not sure if anyone is doing nitro in bottles; I haven’t seen that yet.”
As is the case across the broader USA, Tyler and Urban Sailor have witnessed the rising demand for convenient coffee and have chosen to take action and grab a piece of this exploding category. Their farsighted approach to selecting a canning partner that can offer nitro coffee in the future will also help future-proof their offerings and introduce more menu/portfolio options.
“There has been a lot of work on our branding style guide as a whole, so when it came to designing the cans, much of the input was based on that,” Tyler adds.
“The result is driven by the colour schemes we use for the corresponding coffee blend bags for our roasted coffee. The fonts and product descriptions have followed the rest of the brand to maintain consistency.”
By ensuring continuity in the branding and aesthetic of their new sustainable cold brew coffee cans, Tyler and his team have ensured that they are instantly recognisable in other retail channels, where sustainable cold–brew coffee cans thrive. This helps the customer connect the roasted coffee products with the newer coffee cans.
What does the lifecycle of an aluminium can look like?
The lifecycle of aluminium cans illustrates their sustainable qualities. Aluminium is infinitely recyclable, meaning it can form a close-loop recycling process that ensures it does not degrade or lose quality as it is processed indefinitely.
Aluminium itself is extracted from bauxite ore, which is most commonly sourced from Australia, Guinea, Jamaica, and Brazil. Once mined, the bauxite is refined to aluminium oxide (alumina) and then smelted, using electrolysis, into pure aluminium.
The result of the smelting is aluminium ingots, which are then rolled into thin sheets for easier malleability and workability. These sheets can be cut into smaller pieces and then formed into the right size for aluminium cans. This is known as the DWI process. Timmers ensure that the aluminium cylinders are cut to identical heights.
For sustainable cold brew coffee cans, it’s crucial to clean and sterilise the raw aluminium cans before they are coated with branding or labels and ultimately filled. Unwanted lubricant from the production process is removed, and a varnish is applied to the bottom of the can. From the inside, a coating is added to reduce corrosion and prevent the contents from interacting with the metal itself.
The can is then baked to complete drying before the neck is prepped for the lid. A flanger shapes the edge for easier filling. Once the cans are deemed leak-free, they are ready for filling with cold brew coffee.
Between 1950 and 2015, just 9% of the world’s plastic was recycled. Meanwhile, the global Recycling Efficiency Rate for aluminium is currently 76%. Around 75% of the nearly 1.5 billion tonnes of aluminium ever produced are still in use today. Aluminium cans themselves are recycled 70% of the time.
This is why sustainable cold brew cans are an excellent option for coffee businesses looking to package RTD coffee and cold brew. Consumers are familiar with and generally have access to aluminium recycling programs, such as curb-side services or waste management centres.
Once the can is deposited for recycling, aluminium is easily broken down for secondary production. It takes just 60 days for a recycled aluminium can to make its way back onto the shelf as a new product.
At Cold Brew Pak, we offer custom, sustainable cold brew cans for specialty coffee companies to package their RTD products. Our cans are highly customisable, and we use laser engraving technology to ensure your brand messaging, aesthetics, and design jump off the shelves in a sleek, elegant, slimline format.
To learn more, visit our website or get in touch with us directly.
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Sustainable cold brew coffee cans
