NatureWorks and IMA Coffee announced that they have entered into a joint strategic partnership aimed at accelerating the market for high performing K-Cup compatible compostable single-serve coffee pods in North America. The multi-year partnership brings together NatureWorks’ decades of expertise with compostable materials, formulations, and processing technology with IMA’s industry-leading competencies and application-specific know-how encompassing all stages of coffee handling, processing, and packaging. The pressure on the single serve coffee market to make more meaningful progress towards a more sustainable packaging solution has grown significantly in recent years. Consumers appreciate single-serve capsules for the convenient and quality brewing experience but see the packaging waste associated with a capsule as a detriment. Compostable capsules create the opportunity to not only address consumer concerns and divert the packaging away from landfills, but, perhaps more importantly, to recover the used coffee grounds, enabling their processing at a compost facility where they deliver valuable nutrients to the final compost. Coffee capsules are complex structures where the capsule body, lidding, and filter must be precisely designed to deliver a consistently high-quality brewing experience. Before the capsules even reach consumers, it’s critical that these components perform well during assembly and filling as well as on the shelf and during brewing. By bringing together NatureWorks’ materials and applications knowledge with IMA’s machinery expertise, the partnership aims to deliver a turn-key compostable coffee pod solution to the entire coffee industry making it simple to have a great cup of coffee and dispose of the used pod in the most sustainable way possible.