As a coffee roaster, vendor, or coffee retail category buyer, choosing products for your coffee lineup should be easy. Choosing between whole bean or ground coffee products will depend on your product application and the needs of your customers, but working with an expert coffee manufacturing partner ensures that you can pivot your product offering based on your customer's needs.

What are the Pros of Whole Bean Coffee?

Drinking coffee that comes from freshly ground beans is a great choice for people who have the time to grind whole bean coffee. Coffee drinkers who want to experience the full flavors or fresh roasted coffee can benefit from the use of whole bean coffee. Whole bean coffee allows for grind size flexibility and tailored brew methods. From drip to espresso, offering your whole bean coffee to your customers allows your customers to have a custom coffee experience based on their brew method of choice. Pod Pack is a coffee roaster and manufacturer who specializes in roasting green coffee and packing it to your specifications. Established brands that need coffee manufacturing help, to keep up with increased demand or roasters who are looking to brand into new coffee products, we recommend that you start with whole bean coffee in either 10oz, 12oz, or 5lb bags.

What are the Cons of Whole Bean Coffee?

Whole bean coffee requires an end user who not only has the time and equipment to grind whole bean coffee but has the ability to dial in grind size to get consistent coffee strength and flavor from cup to cup. If you are a business that sells coffee to consumers who have access to either an in-home or commercial coffee grinder, then you can rest assured that whole bean coffee is a great choice for your business. That said, whole bean coffee can come with a learning curve, and your customers will need to adjust grind size to identify the best tasting brew method. Getting the perfect coffee extraction can require time and experimentation to nail the right technique. Using whole bean coffee can add cleaning time for your customers, where they will have to maintain a clean coffee serving space as well as maintain grinding equipment.

What are the Pros of Ground Coffee?

Ground, bagged coffee is a popular choice for coffee consumers primarily because it 1) does not require grinding equipment and 2) it is a quick and easy coffee brew method. Providing ground coffee as part of your product offering will give your consumers back precious time and energy and will reduce the need for special grinding equipment. For example, frac packs, sometimes known as portion packs is ground coffee that is packaged in film, without a filter, and is a great choice for Office Coffee applications allowing anyone from Office Managers to employees to simply tear and pour fresh, nitrogen flushed coffee into a brew basket making it easy to provide coffee for employees.

What are the Cons of Ground Coffee?

Depending on the handling of the coffee, ground coffee can lose its freshness faster than whole bean coffee. One of the reasons for this is that ground coffee has a larger surface area exposing the coffee to more oxygen which can lead to quicker oxidation and staleness. Ground coffee can also limit the type of brew method that you or your customers use. When you work with Pod Pack, your coffee will be nitrogen flushed, which keeps your coffee fresh. We will dial in your ground coffee to your exact specifications; however, you may require different grind sizes for your coffee depending on the intended brew method for your customers.

Packaging Types for Whole Bean Coffee

Whole bean, bagged coffee is a great choice for both retail and wholesale distribution. Pod Pack is a coffee manufacturing company that works with your business to create shelf-ready whole bean coffee that is nitrogen flushed for guaranteed long-lasting freshness. Some of the most common packaging types for whole bean coffee include stand-up pouches, flat bottom bags, and side gusset bags. Email us or talk to your Private Label Coffee Account Manager to discuss current packaging options.

Packaging Types for Ground Coffee

Ground coffee can be packed into stand-up pouches, flat bottom bags, or metal cans, however packing ground coffee into vacuum-sealed bags like frac packs or portion packs are excellent for preserving freshness by minimizing oxygen exposure. This helps maintain flavor and extend the shelf life of your coffee products by enabling you to have happier customers and sell more coffee.

Whether you choose ground, bagged coffee or a single-serve coffee option like Compostable Keurig® compatible cups, having a variety of coffee packaging options ensure that you give your customers choice and maintain a competitive advantage.

Quick Guide: Brew Method Grind Size

• French Press: extra coarse
• Percolators: extra coarse
• Cold brew coffee: coarse
• Cafe solo brew: medium coarse
• Traditional drip coffee: medium
• AeroPress: medium fine
• Espresso: fine
• Moka pot: fine
• Turkish coffee: extra fine

Using Your Roasted Coffee: Toll-Roasting Services

Are you wondering how to meet your coffee roasting deadline quickly? Partnering with a coffee co-processor like Pod Pack allows you to toll-roast your coffee using our roasting facilities with your green coffee beans or use your already roasted coffee to be packed in your coffee packaging of choice.

Using Our Roasted Coffee: Roast-To-Order Services

When you use our roasted coffee, you can choose from our house blends or work with your Private Label Coffee Expert to develop a custom roast for your coffee project using our green beans.

Contact Pod Pack at 225-351-7846 or send an e-mail to sales@podpack.com.