It’s shocking to consider how something small, a product that’s consumed at home or possibly in the workplace, can either damage the planet or help rebuild the environment. It all depends on the research, the technology and the materials, which can either be Earth-friendly or Earth-destroying.

A perfect example is the coffee that people drink – not just the coffee itself, but the single-serve coffee pods or “K-cups” that so many people use nowadays. Surely you’ve seen these little containers, the ones that people might insert into a Keurig coffee maker, which are convenient but also produce a surprising amount of waste.

Those pods might be little, but there’s an awfully big market for them. Believe it or not, single-serve coffee pods comprise 50%+ of all coffee consumed and indicate 8.5%+ compounded growth per year. And amazingly, the single-use capsule industry is expected to have reached annual consumption of 50+ billion units in 2020.

Clearly, there’s a massively lucrative and hyper-growth market for these coffee pods – and yet, younger, more mindful consumers don’t love the fact that conventional pods are absolutely toxic to the environment.

There’s an underreported plastics crisis going on right now, with more than three-fourths of it ending up in our land and oceans. The vast majority of consumers don’t realize that those conventional coffee pods they use and discard can take anywhere from 500 to 10,000 years to break down in the environment.

Darren Footz knows all about the startling consequences of conventional, plastic-based coffee pods. His research indicates that an astonishing 40 billion coffee pods go to landfills every year. Knowing this, Mr. Footz set out to revolutionize the coffee pod market as we know it.

Mr. Footz is the CEO of NEXE Innovations Inc., a company founded in 2015 with the vision of leveraging 3-D printing technology to design, prototype and patent the world’s first compostable single-serve coffee pod.

Born out of the need to replace non-biodegradable plastic in these popular coffee products, NEXE has already established itself as a leader in plant-based materials science and advanced manufacturing technologies. In other words, NEXE is quickly becoming a category killer as it’s a serious threat to highwaste, plastics-based coffee pod designs.

Through Mr. Footz’s vision and relentless research, NEXE has brought the world a coffee pod with unprecedented Earth-friendly features:

• Plant-based
• Non-toxic in soils
• Quickly and fully compostable, no compromise!
• Backed by verified science – NEXE’s ecotoxicity and compostability results are backed by leading-edge scientific and industrial studies
• Compatible with the leading single-serve coffee-format machines
• After five years of R&D, NEXE has mastered pod barrier design without compromise and proved compostability in as little as 35 days (not 500 or 10,000 years)

Along with all of that, NEXE’s coffee pods are cool to the touch, use no adhesives whatsoever, allow for more volume, use soy-based ink, and offer superior taste (a crucial selling point) compared to conventional K-cup pods.

As you’re reading this, NEXE is addressing the rapidly growing demand for plant-based alternatives to plastic through the company’s 100%-owned, state-of-the-art commercial facility. Not long ago, NEXE placed orders for custom-built high-speed automation to scale its NEXE pod production capacity at the facility from 20 million annually toward capacity of up to 120 million pods per year.

In addition to being a leader in production capacity, NEXE is focusing on research as the company’s home compostability test, which took place at the Surrey UBC Chemical and Biological Engineering Lab in Vancouver, showed that the NEXE pods demonstrated complete degradation, meeting applicable compost quality standards after just 12 weeks.

​And now, there’s a red-hot development straight from NEXE as the company is launching a new inhouse brand, XOMA Superfoods, to meet the growing needs of health- and environmentally conscious consumers.

The timeline is moving fast as the very first XOMA Superfoods stock-keeping unit (SKU), a soluble microground coffee fortified with MCT oil packaged in the NEXE Pod, will launch as a pilot in late January.

XOMA is a truly unique and memorable brand name, derived from the Greek word for soil. And XOMA Superfoods, NEXE’s in-house coffee and superfoods brand, will soon go live at www.Xoma.ca.

With the XOMA launch, NEXE is expanding its presence into the all-important e-commerce domain while at the same time allowing the company to meet its sustainability mandate and providing the customers with the highest quality coffees and superfoods.

The first XOMA Superfoods SKU is really just the beginning as NEXE plans to add more products, available for purchase online and through subscription, via the new direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. XOMA Superfoods will eventually include a wide range of healthy lifestyle products, which may include coffees, superfood creamers, coconut oil, MCT oil, mushrooms, and moringa.

The launch of XOMA and the accompanying DTC e-commerce platform will provides NEXE and its stakeholders with multiple benefits:

• A sales ecosystem for NEXE’s proprietary coffee capsules 
• Better ability for NEXE to understand its customers and their tastes
• Another way to manage quality control and logistics, and maintain high brand integrity
• An avenue of outreach to provide NEXE’s customers with a great overall experience

Moreover, the launch couldn’t be any timelier as the ongoing global Covid-19 pandemic has forced consumers how to prioritize their grocery spend and take a more active role in their personal wellness.

This focus on health has increased consumer demand for functional foods and superfoods with highquality novel ingredients. At the same time, the pandemic has accelerated the move to online DTC sales as consumers avoid public spaces, either by preference or local health ordinance.

“XOMA Superfoods is the next logical step for NEXE,” explains Mr. Footz. “Our innovative, plant-based technology means that customers can continue with their daily superfood and coffee consumption but can now enjoy the experience sustainably. XOMA offers high-quality, healthy products in our fully compostable packaging.”

Indeed, it is the next step in earth-friendly, plant-based e-commerce – and with Xoma.ca ready to launch very soon, be assured that the next-generation coffee pod market will never be the same.