Mother Parkers plans environmentally friendly single-serve pods
Mother Parkers Tea and Coffee, a Canadian tea and coffee manufacturer, announced plans to introduce recyclable single-serve pods. While sales of single-serve cups are booming in home and office environments, the cups are usually made of a hard plastic that's not widely recycled, posing an issue for environmentally friendly consumers. EcoCup is made of plastic that is recyclable in about two-thirds of the municipal systems in the US and will go on sale in about one month. Mother Parkers will first use the EcoCup for its Higgins & Burke tea brand, followed by a partnership with Numi Tea later on in the year. EcoCup coffee pods will be available in 2015. According to Euromonitor International, sales of single-serve machines in the US grew at a compound annual rate of 33% from 2008 to 2013, with coffee pods growing at a rate of 78% over the same period.