Grow your KCup Packaging business with our Quality Solutions

The kcups is the products made by the company named Keurig Dr Pepper Inc, which is a public company, founded in 1981 and headquartered in Burlingtong, Massachusetts, also known as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters before 2014 or Keurig Green Mountain since 2014. It is one of the largest beverage and coffee maker in the world.

K-cups or k-cup pods is one of the company’s main products and now is the most popular one in the world compared to other types of coffee cups or pods.

In 1998, Kcup was developed and put into production, aiming to penetrate the office and home market. Since its existence, it has quickly gained market awareness and become the most preferred instant coffee product among the office workers and family with its simplicity and fresh taste. Besides, office coffee machine business have reached another level since the launch of the K-cups, leading to the thriving of the home appliances manufacturing.

The patent for Kcup was expired in 2012. After the patent protection period expires, the patent has been disclosed as a patent that can be used by the public, and the patent will be contributed to the entire society and will no longer be protected by the patent right. As it is open for the world, many factories has seized the opportunity to produce Kcups and gain sales.

“K” from the “K-cup” refers to “Keurig Green Mountain”.
According to Wikipedia, “the K-Cup® term is trademarked by Keurig Green Mountain to describe their single-serve brewing capsule. As defined above, you can identify a K-Cup by the foil-lined, ringed design with a plastic cup.”

There are specially designed filling and sealing machines to fill the K-cup pods with all different types of powders or granules and seal the k-cup with edge cleaning system. 
During the production process, the K-cups will be filled with nitrogen and then tightly filled.
So air, oxygen and dampness or moisture, light could not destroy the flavour of the powder. 
Each step of production is subtle and with high accuracy to make sure a production of perfectly filled and sealed K-cups. 
Of course, there would be defective items. 
But it is rare. 
So the freshness of the powder and long shelf life are kept and ensured by the nitrogen flushing and tightly sealing by the filling and sealing machine.

It will only take a few minutes to get a hot coffee from the Kcup. The time-consuming is the coffee maker, the brew machine to heat the water which could take a few minutes. Once the hot water is ready, it will only take less than 1 minutes to brew the powder from the Kcup and delivery you a hot coffee drink. It is just as simple as that for you to get a instant coffee to even make you day if you are deep coffee lover.

Based on the research of “the scientific research of Kcups” and “favorite flavor of Kcups”, a great hot coffee from Kcups is generated by 6 reasons which are timing, the proper temperature to brew the coffee powder, turbulence, the quality of the hot water, secrets or recipe, and the quality of the coffee beans.

Timing refers to how long to brew the coffee. Specifically, it means how much time for the water to get heated and how much time the hot water run through the coffee powder to get the most flavor out of it.

Temperature means the most proper temperature to brew the coffee powder to deliver the strongest flavor into the into coffee. Keurig suggests that the most suitable temperature for the brewing system to get a great coffee tea, hot chocolate or other drinks is 89 °C which is 192°F. If the temperature is too high, there is possibility the nutrition structure could be destroyed. If the temperature is too low, the flavor and nutrition would not come out with hot water to your cup.

Turbulence could be identified as how strong the flow of hot water runs through the powder so it could carry all the flavor and nutrition to your cup. Slow flow of hot water would carry nothing out of the coffee beans.

The quality of the water simply means the water is just water and it carries no other flavor so not to destroy the origin taste of the coffee. It is the second most important factor to ensure a good quality of hot instant coffee.

Secrets or recipe suggests the how much hot water needed compared to the coffee powder. Too much water will only cause a light taste, meanwhile too less water will only result in thickness of coffee. Those situation will only lead to the unpleasant taste of the hot coffee. The ratio of water to coffee powder depends on personal preference. If you are a espresso fan, less hot water suit you better.

The quality of the coffee powder in side Kcup is dependent on objective and subjective reasons. It is the most important factor as the taste and flavor is generated by the coffee powder. The objective reasons include that how is the quality of the coffee beans which might refers to the place the coffee beans tree grows and what the weather and environment are. The objective also include how the coffee powder is filled into the Kcups which is refers to the quality of the filling and sealing machine. Besides, how the coffee beans are ground into coffee powder could be the other objective reasons. Subjective reasons simply refers to the consumers preference. They all enjoy their best coffee of various types of tastes. There are dazzling brands of Kcups on the market. One should try many different ones to identify the right one for himself or herself.

Other reasons such as the quality of the brewing machine and the quality of the Kcups referring how it is filled and sealed would also affect the quality of the hot coffee.

All in all, a great cup of instant hot coffee is generated by above 6 major reasons. It is hard to define a best hot instant coffee for all and there is no one single standard as everyone has his or her one preference, so you need to try time and time again to find the right brewing machine and right Kcup brand to generate your best instant hot coffee.

What is the difference between coffee pods and Kcups?

Both Kcups and coffee pods are widely used instant coffee products in families and in offices because of their simplicity and time-saving feature. However, those two types of products are quite different in terms of way of being brewed and outlook.

The structure of the coffee pods is much simpler. It is made of round paper and inside there is the coffee or cocoa powder or tea leave. The paper of the coffee pods is considered as the filter.
Compared to the Kcups which could contain 8-13 grams of coffee powder, the coffee pods could contain 7-12 grams, slightly lower. The more complicated structure leads to a higher cost of K-cusps compared to the cost of coffee pods. Thus the price of the Kcups in general is higher.

As the pods are made of the paper, the shelf life is shorter as the filling and sealing of Kcups with nitrogen prevent the air, light or moisture from getting inside to ensure a longer shelf life. This is one the reasons why Kcups are more common and more popular. Besides, there is a richer variety of Kcups as it could store longer.

Firstly, more environment-friendly material will be used to produce Kcup. For instance, more easily biodegradable would be used as the material of Kcup. There are billions of Kcups used every year. Though now a lot of them are biodegradable and recyclable. But still it take decades to degrade which is still not very environment-friendly. So it is very necessary to use more easily biodegradable material for the Kcups.
Secondly, Kcups taste will be further improved. This is related to how to ensure the freshness of the coffee powder in the Kcups. And it takes a lot of more technologies for the Kcup filling and sealing machine to ensure a higher quality of production in terms of filling accuracy, sealing quality and nitrogen flushing and efficiency of the production.
Thirdly, smarter Kcups production. To meet the ever increasing demand of Kcups coffee in the market. The key would be how to improve the efficiency of the machine related to the amount of Kcups produced per hour and the amount of Kcups filled, sealed and packed per hour. Now it might take one worker to control one machine. In the future, one computer might control dozens of machine at the same time.
In brief, the future of Kcup business is bright, the market will grow greatly year by year, and more technologies will be adopted in this industry.

Each single K-cup is composed of a cup made of PP (plastic with EVOH for oxygen barrier) and a lid generally made of aluminum and a paper filter placed in side the cup, smaller than the normal cup.

Polypropylene #5 plastic is the material used to produce K-cup.


1, PP5 material is food grade, this material is certified by SGS in the United States, non-toxic and harmless to humans.

2, PP5 has outstanding chemical resistance, can be used to make boxes and bottles, etc. PP5 plastic products are made of polypropylene, can be used repeatedly, but also high temperature resistance, is the only plastic can be put into the microwave oven to heat, so you can also use boiling water to scald.

3, PP5 is now the only plastic box can be put into the microwave oven, melting point up to 167 ℃, can be used repeatedly after careful cleaning.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The following chart presents the size of the K-cup

The kcups are launched to provide instant coffee for families and offices. Not only each kcup could contain 8 to 13 grams coffee powder, but also it could store leave of various types of teas, powder made from different kinds of fruits such as strawberry and lemonade, soup mix powder such as French onion soup powder to serve your breakfast, lunch and dinner, grounds of cocoa or chocolate or other types of dry powder and granules. Apart from used for serving coffee, the single-serve pod could be used to make instant soup, juice such as lemonade, tea, hot chocolate, hot coco, even alcohol drinks such cocktail and Cider. 

According to Emma’s research, any food which is powdered which could be fit into the k-cup could be brewed through warm or hot water to generate a instant cup of beverage. Its time-saving feature and simplicity is incomparable.

There is an expired date for any types of food. 
And K-cup is no exception with its expired date. 
In general, the K-cup of coffee powder could stay fresh for about 18 months if it is not open, sealed tightly in the K-cup pods. 
The K-cup is tightly filled and sealed by customized K-cup coffee pods filling and sealing machine to ensure the freshness and a long shelf life.

Simply put your K-cup pods into the coffee brew machine, a small machine commonly seen in the offices or in the houses and fin the button and press it to brew. These machines brew KCup pods by piercing the foil seal with a nozzle. At the same time, the bottom of the plastic pod is pierced with a discharge nozzle. The coffee grounds inside the K-Cup pods are in a paper filter. Certain amount of hot water would run through the K-Cup pod, through the ground and a filter. The brew temperature of 89 °C in general and some machines could have a different temperature.

K-cups has become more and more popular over the years. Keurig Green Mountain sales presents that there are over 13 billion coffee pods are sold every year, among which over 80% are Kcups. 13 billions packs sales indicates a net revenue of $ 4.52 billion. And the numbers are growing year by year.
Statistic also suggests that at least 40% of American families have a Keurig in the house. Each year, there are over 30 billion Kcups are sold and used. Besides, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a bigger sales as lots of people work at home. Before 2019, averagely people drank 2.45 cups of coffee each day and now this number has grown to 2.77 cups of coffee per day. And the number is still growing. As we could see that the pandemic would not disappear quickly and would exit continuously, still a lot of employee would stay at home for work. That means the sales of Kcups and coffee pods and the brewing machines would be higher.
The reasons behind the over 7% growth, apart from people working from home, are that people have worries about the economy so they become more cautious in the spending while the Kcups or coffee pods would meet their daily coffee consumption demand, and that they are changing the traditional way of buying coffee from local coffee shop to getting a instant coffee by themselves at home. Especially during the pandemic, making instant coffee at home by themselves could prevent them from getting in touch with too many other people.
Kcups adopt recyclable material and are more environment-friendly. It soon gains popularity among those consumers who have a sustainability mindset to protect the environment.

The average consumption of Kcups coffee during the pandemic is about 2.77 cups per day. How many you can drink every day depends on yourself. You can drink as many cups as you want if your body can accept it and there is no bad feelings of your body. If you stomach feels bad, you should stop drinking it and take some rest. Even you could drink a lot of cups, we do not suggest you to over drink. Over-drinking is not enjoying coffee. Instead, it might destroy your enjoyment. Always keep in mind that things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme.

Definitely, it is safe to drink instant coffee generated by brewing the Kcups. Firstly, the accurate filling, tight sealing and nitrogen flushing ensure the quality of the coffee powder. It stops the inner side from the corrosion of light, oxygen and moisture. The structure of the Kcups makes it more convenient for transportation, ensures a longer shelf life and keeps the freshness of the coffee powder. Secondly, the material used for the producing the Kcup are carefully selected to make sure there is no harmful matter produced during the brewing process. Safety and simplicity are the main reason why Kcups become so popular since its launch. The continuous development will lead to even a safer and better quality taste of Kcup coffee.

In general Kcups are packed in paper box which is environment-friendly. There are different sizes of Kcup packages which could contain 12, 16, 18, and 24 Kcups respectively.
A lof of filling and sealing machine manufacturers such Afpack could provide turnkey solution for filling and sealing the Kcups and using the conveyor to connect the filling and sealing machine to a packing machine so to pack the Kcups automatically.

In general, white cardboard is used to produce the Kcups package box. Although the quality of the items has nothing to do with the packaging, the quality of the packaged items is generally not too bad. Many merchants began to choose white cardboard as the packaging for white cardboard’s stillness, smoothness and universal feature.

The mains advantages of white cardboard are ultra-high stiffness and smoothness and that it could match different types of printing colors and materials.

First, ultra-high stiffness and smoothness is the key advantage.
Looking at the entire packaging market, it can be found that the texture of the outer packaging box of most products is relatively firm and smooth, and the texture is very good to the touch. The requirements for the outer packaging of the product also need to be wear-resistant, waterproof, and anti-collision. White cardboard uses high-quality wood pulp as raw materials. If white cardboard is processed into commodity packaging boxes, it can fully meet the packaging requirements of merchants.

Second, the white cardboard can match various printing colors and materials.
Before the advent of white cardboard, most businesses could only use traditional paper products to print product packaging, and some even used plastic products as product packaging. Regardless of the limitations of the two in other aspects, it will be affected by many factors in terms of design and color printing. However, the use of white cardboard will avoid the existence of this problem. The advantage of white cardboard is that it can be well blended with various pigments and colors.

Kcup business will grow much bigger at a faster pace and the business will thrive at another level. Surely it is still a great business. To start with, the statistic shows that compared to 2019 the Kcups business has gained over 7% in 2020. 2019 was the start of Covid and in 2020 a lot of people start to work from home which means the consumers gains greatly during the pandemic. And apparently and sadly, the pandemic is not over yet. Secondly, the cost of Kcups is relatively low. A manufacturer of Kcup do not need to invest a lot to start this business. A high-quality Afpak Kcups filling and sealing machine costs about 20,000-30,000 USD. But it could highly-efficiently to produce 40-80 Kcups per minutes. Lastly, Kcups are profitable.The cost is low but the selling price is high in average in the market, offering a great profit margin. The ratio of reward to risk is potentially high.