In the latest instalment of our guest blog series, we hear from Soniya Nahar at Ueshima Coffee Company, about how Podback is helping the company in the UK through delivering simple and sustainable solutions for its customers.
Ueshima Coffee Company was first founded in 1933 in Kobe, Japan, when our founder Tadao Ueshima discovered the ‘mysterious beverage’ of coffee. Enthralled by the rich, aromatic drink, Mr. Ueshima made it his mission to spread its popularity across Japan.
Now, Ueshima is Japan’s no.1 coffee brand, with devoted customers all across the country. While Western drinkers regularly mix their coffee with milk and sugar, Japanese coffee lovers prefer to traditionally drink it in its purest form. This, for Ueshima Coffee Company, places a real emphasis on the quality of the bean, which has influenced Japan to develop its own unique approach to coffee craftsmanship.
At Ueshima, we are now working to bring this craft and innovation to the rest of the world. The UK is a key market for us, and we launched here at the same time as the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Not only do UK customers share our love of the highest quality coffee, but they also share our commitment to sustainability. At Ueshima Coffee Company, we have a number of waste reduction initiatives including the introduction of 100% recyclable packaging across our aluminium iced coffee cans and coffee pouches for our beans and ground ranges.
Joining Podback has been key to our efforts in this area. When we learnt about the scheme, we loved the variety of ways that it offered for our customers to recycle their used coffee capsules. The fact that we could offer this service at no extra cost for our customers felt like a win-win situation.
The scheme has proved popular among our customers, with a growing number adding a Podback bag to their order and providing positive feedback. We were also excited to hear about the recent partnership between Podback and Morrisons, one of the major retailers who stock our products. Once the in-store drop-off points are rolled out nationally it will make it even more convenient for our customers, who will be able to buy and recycle their pods all in the same supermarket when they shop.
Customers are increasingly looking for quality and simplicity in products to make sure that they get good value for money, all while ensuring they look after the planet as much as possible. As we continue to grow and share the distinct flavour of Japanese coffee with more people across the UK, our work with Podback will play an important role in providing a simple way for our customers to ensure that their coffee pods are reliably recycled.
Through Podback, used aluminium and plastic pods are reprocessed in the UK. Recycled aluminium pods are used in the manufacture of beverage cans and car components, and plastic coffee pods are recycled into durable plastic products including furniture and industrial packaging. The coffee grounds are processed through anaerobic digestion to produce fertiliser for local farmers and renewable energy.