'Beanless coffee' to soon become available, will help save forests

A Seattle-based startup, Atomo Coffee, is preparing to launch world's first beanless coffee this week with an aim to reduce the environmental impact of growing and brewing real coffee beans. The startup is backed by some of the investors who support Beyond Meat.

The investors have poured USD 51.6 million into the startup. The brew uses superfoods and upcycled ingredients to mimic molecular structure of coffee.

As climate change has effect on global weather, coffee farms are moving uphill in search for cooler climes. Forests are destroyed in this process to make way for these farms.

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Deforestation further speeds up climate change and thus these two processes fuel each other. It has been estimated in number of studies that by 2050, about half of the land currently under use to grow coffee will be unproductive due to climate change.

"Coffee is causing deforestation at a pretty alarming rate - almost up to ten (New York) Central Parks a day," said Atomo's CEO and co-founder Andy Kleitsch ahead of the firm's beanless coffee launch at the New York Coffee Festival on Friday.

"We're talking about a machine, a coffee machine that's never stopping, always looking for more land, and that's what we're trying to prevent," he said.

Atomo Coffee says the initial 'proof-of-concept' cold brew coffee led to 93 per cent less carbon emissions and involved 94 per cent less water than regular coffee. The invention was hailed as one of the 200 best inventions of 2022.

The startup is expecting that it will see similar figures for its hot beanless coffee which will also be made using upcycled ingredients like date pips which normally get discarded.

Atomo is initially targeting coffee shops as opposed to stores and supermarket chains as its roasted coffee will wholesale for $20.99 per lb, versus the $10-14 per lb paid by the average US coffee shop.

Atomo has said that it is in talks with most of the major global coffee firm in order to decide how it will supply them.

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