Coffee lovers, brothers Daniel and Oliver Pretorius and their cousin Lulu Larché, cannot function without a delicious cup of locally brewed java wafting through their kitchen. Their love for a good cuppa, be it on the go travelling or from home, was something they all shared. But when they found out how wasteful the coffee industry could be, they knew they had to do something about it.
Coffee lover brothers Daniel (left) and Oliver Pretorius (right) and their cousin Lulu Larché (middle). Photo supplied.
It all began in 2018 when the trio found people can throw away as many as 56 billion plastic and aluminium capsules (also known as pods that go into your Nespresso machines) in just one year. After only a single use, these numbers which equate to mountains of coffee waste, could take as long as 500 years to decompose.
The statistic along with a driving ambition to see some of Cape Town’s best locally produced coffee end up in Nespresso machines across the country led to the birth of 4WKS coffee, so named because that’s how many weeks coffee stays fresh after being roasted.
Truth coffee inside the compostable pods. Photo Jay Caboz.
“We recognised the brilliance of Nespresso and how it meets the need for convenience: to enjoy an espresso anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button — at home, on holiday, in the office. But single-use plastic and aluminium pods are wasteful, unsustainable, and killing the only home we have,” says the team.
Since 2019 the company has made pods that can turn to compost in just three months. Everything from their pods’ plant-based biomaterial shell to its vegetable fibre lid and edible ink branding is compostable.
“One of the things that we’d like to achieve is to highlight the system of waste, and to really encourage people to start to separate their waste and take responsibility of where it lands up. We’ve diverted around 150 kgs of used coffee pods from landfill. And that’s not taking into consideration the pods that are composted at home, because we simply don’t know this number,” says Oliver.
They hope their efforts will help to tackle South Africa’s overwhelmed waste management systems. The country generates more than 122 million tons of waste a year of which almost 40% of all waste that does end up in South African landfills is organic and could be composted. A mere 10% of it is recycled.
“With 4WKS we really hope that your morning coffee routine of putting a capsule in your machine, extracting something which was encapsulated locally and fresh, and then disposing of it in organic waste can really be a catalyst, or a way to encourage people to take responsibility on how they dispose of other things, which they consume,” says Daniel.
“We’re coffee snobs who love the planet. We wanted to know if we use something as small as a little pod, could we shift consciousness when it comes to what they use and where it lands at,” says Larché, co-founder 4WKS Coffee.
The pods have been designed to work specifically with most Nespresso machines, barring the fully automated ones. The pods are filled with some of the best Cape Town coffee: from Deluxe Coffeeworks, Father Coffee, Naked Coffee, Rosetta Roastery, Truth Coffee Roasting, and Terbodore Coffee Roasters.
A fresh delivery of Terbodore Coffee Roasters arrives. Photo Jay Caboz.
“The opportunity, specifically with the capsule, is that the coffee that was available inside the capsule was traditionally over roasted or very bitter. And that was when we thought from a coffee snob background, why can’t you get your local favourite roaster inside the capsule?” says Oliver.
The start of their journey goes back to 2014, when Daniel and Oliver’s father (and Larché’s uncle), discovered a home-compostable pod made from bagasse, sugarcane waste.
It took several years, in between finishing degrees and wandering the world job hunting, to let the idea simmer before eventually they decided to turn it into a business. The inspiration came in Greece. The brothers were on a family holiday on the picturesque island of Paxos.
“It was literally there, Oliver and I and my dad had found this machine overseas that we could use as a prototype machine, which is what we have in the office at the moment. And yeah, we basically three of us decided that we would use a little bit of savings that we had put together to import this machine from Italy,” says Daniel.
When they got back to South Africa the first thing these coffee lovers did was get their hands on the encapsulator machine. From the garage of their father’s home in Paarl they set about making the pod shells from bagasse.
The first thing they did was get their hands on the encapsulator machine. It is still used in the office today. Photo Jay Caboz.
“We didn’t know what the product was going to look like. And didn’t know what we were going to put inside the capsule. We actually didn’t even know what the capsule shell was going to look like. What we did know is that this machine would be able to take a capsule shell that was Nespresso compatible. And so that’s really where the journey started,” says Daniel.
This was when they brought in Larché’, who was working as a brand strategist, to bring it all together. The road to shifting the habits of coffee lovers hasn’t been easy. One of the challenges was coming up with ways to make capsules compostable. As it turned out, bagasse wasn’t an ideal material for the pod’s shell.
“When we launched our bagasse pod, the coffee didn’t taste as strong, and sometimes it would work. It was like an avocado, sometimes you get a ripe avo and sometimes you don’t,” they say.
The team shelved bagasse and turned to a plant-based biomaterial shell made from corn starch instead. Atleast until they grew the fledgling business beyond selling pods from a stall at the Oranjezicht City Farm Market, in Cape Town – a favourite spot for local coffee lovers.
All components of the coffee pods are compostable. Photo Jay Caboz.
In March 2020 when Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Without a market to sell in, the trio went online and started home deliveries. “Literally in a space of 24 hours, we drew up a Google form and told people to place their orders. We literally drove around Cape Town once a week and home-dropped pods and little handwritten notes.”
A year later they were delivering coffee nationwide. In August 2021, 4WKS moved into a factory situated in the trendy coffee-drinking suburb of Woodstock, in Cape Town.
Coffee is kept in these drums and delivered weekly in small amounts to ensure it stays fresh. Photo Jay Caboz.
“Sustainability is not a straight road. And we realised we have to be okay with the curves and knowing where we want to go. Making sure that each day, each week, we are inching a bit further,” says Larché.
Once used, the pods can be sealed in a compostable pouch.
Once used, the pods can be sealed in a compostable pouch. Photo Jay Caboz.
Launched in November 2021. The bags can be dropped off at one of seven compost collection points in the Western Cape.
“The entire thing will compost in three months in a commercial composting environment. In a home composting environment, tests are still being done. It will break down but it will require a little bit more patience. So it may potentially take double the time; six months,” says Larché.
“It’s been really cool to go to our local coffee shop, and see people return their pouch of used capsules. More people are becoming aware of what’s ending up in landfill, and how we can better manage our waste. I think this is hopefully going to become the norm of how we consume,” says Daniel.
A partnership with composting facility Ywaste, in the Western Cape, ensures that all pods go into compost, or you can do it yourself at home.
Due to landfills running out of space, the Western Cape provincial (and national) government has passed new legislation. This requires a 50% reduction (or ban) of organic waste from landfills by 2022 and a 100% diversion by 2027.
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