University of Guelph innovation that helped create the world’s first compostable coffee pods will be featured on Discovery Canada Dec. 4.
The pods – known as Club Coffee’s PurPod100™ — will be profiled in an episode of Made by Destruction airing Monday at 8:30 p.m. on the cable and satellite specialty channel. The program shows how everything from obsolete airplanes to empty bottles are being split apart, stripped down, melted, shredded and reinvented in ingenious ways.
The episode will centre on production of the pod’s unique compostable ring, which is used by leading coffee brands such as President’s Choice, McCafé Canada, Muskoka Roastery, Ethical Bean and Jumping Bean. Viewers will see how compostable materials — especially chaff, a waste by-product of bean roasting — are produced and combined to create the ring.
The segment will highlight the contributions of two companies. Competitive Green Technologies of Leamington, Ont., produces advanced compostable bioresin, drawing on research in U of G’s Bioproducts Discovery and Development Centre overseen by Prof. Amar Mohanty. Fourmark Manufacturing creates the rings in Oakville, Ont.
The episode will also take viewers behind the scenes at Club Coffee, showing how the rings are integrated with other components and filled with coffee to complete the process.