Bean-less coffee: fad or future?

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Could a bean-less coffee alternative made from date seeds and other upcycled ingredients be the key to solving ‘the 2050 problem’?

Date seeds, fenugreek, ramon seeds, lemon, guava, carob, millet: don’t be mistaken, this isn’t a shopping list for the health food store but instead the ingredients that might make up the morning coffee of millions of consumers around the world if all goes to plan for one forward-thinking American start-up.

The coffee industry has an inconvenient truth it must face if it’s to continue supplying the two billion cups consumed across the world each day. Land used to grow coffee is predicted to halve by 2050 and extreme weather events are already causing havoc to supply chains, sparking a steady rise in coffee prices across 2024.

While many in the industry seek to make existing farming, processing, transport, and roasting processes more climate-friendly, Seattle-based company Atomo has ripped up the rule book and started again from scratch. Its goal? To create ‘the most sustainable coffee on the planet’.

“Atomo wasn’t born to replace coffee but to do something better for the planet,” says Chief Operating Officer Ed Hoehn.

“Over the past five years, company Founder Andy Kleitsch and the Atomo team have used science to create a more sustainable coffee product that produces fewer carbon emissions and uses less farmland compared to conventional coffee.”

Drawing on their background in food microbiology, Atomo’s team of scientists have reverse engineered coffee from a host of natural ingredients. A traditional cup of coffee contains 28 compounds that are also found in other food items, which the team have identified and extracted from a range of sustainable, upcycled, and superfood ingredients.

“The first step was to buy all the compounds off the shelf and put them together to see the result – it did not taste good. As with most things, you’ve got to fail before you get something successful,” says Hoehn.

It’s taken more than 400 formulations to find the winning recipe. One of the biggest hurdles for the scientists has been creating a drink that not only tastes like coffee but also smells and brews like beans harvested from a conventional coffee tree. From the early trials, date seeds have been a key ingredient.

“Currently, hundreds of millions of pounds of dates seeds are thrown away every year. Except for feeding camels – of which there aren’t many in Southern California where most dates are grown in the United States (US) – traditionally there hasn’t been much use for the seeds so they’ve ended up in landfill,” says Hoehn.

“We’ve chosen to establish our production facility in California’s Coachella Valley for this reason. We now collect and process about 10,000 pounds of date seeds every day. At our Coachella factory, they are cleaned and granulated before heading to our roastery in Seattle.”

At the new roastery, the date seeds are soaked using brewing equipment before being mixed with the other ingredients. The most recent blend features ramon seeds, lemon, fenugreek, guava, aronia berry, millet, caffeine (a waste product from decaffeinated green tea), strawberry fibre, carob, potato fibre, carrot powder, sunflower seeds, and green banana. The resulting product is then roasted in a conventional roaster, just like coffee beans.

“The 28 compounds in our product react in the roaster just like traditional beans do, producing that rich brown colour. When prepared as espresso, it produces crema like a standard shot. It was important for us that the product didn’t just have the same compounds but also worked well with consumer equipment and large-scale production,” says Hoehn.

The Atomo team believe their bean-less concept brews and pours like conventional coffee, but surely the proof is in the drinking? According to Hoehn, it’s unrecognisable in blind taste tests.

“Our first product was a line of ready-to-drink SKUs. In a randomised blind taste test, they were preferred three to one when compared to some of the industry’s biggest coffee brands,” he says.

“The feedback we have received from some of the industry’s finest connoisseurs has been very positive. The aroma has been the hardest factor to perfect, but I believe we’ve made huge progress.”

The first Atomo espresso blend was soft-launched in November 2023 before the full launch in April 2024 when the roastery and production sites were complete. The range now also includes a 50/50 drip coffee available in dark and medium roasts, plus a 50/50 blend in collaboration with New York roaster Bluestone Lane. The partnership, according to Hoehn, is part of the company’s drive to work with the existing coffee community.

“We want to tell the coffee industry that we’re not here to replace, we’re here to partner with you,” he says.

“We’re in talks with many large coffee companies who, by blending with Atomo, have the opportunity to instantly create their most sustainable coffee to date.”

The sustainability credentials of Atomo’s product are staggering. The company reports that its Regular Espresso has 83 per cent fewer carbon emissions than conventional coffee and uses 70 per cent less farmland – two factors that greatly influence the ability to grow good quality coffee in the future.

In its first year of production, the roastery aims to produce four million pounds of bean-less coffee. According to Atomo’s figures, that would equate to the prevention of 8.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of two million miles driven by car. In terms of land usage, that’s around 2700 football fields that could be left untouched.

Hoehn and team understand coffee has a long history and the ritual is sacred among many of the almost one billion people who drink it. For this reason, one of their key aims is to collaborate with major roasters to create more 50/50 blends.

“The ‘2050 problem’ is on the radar of all the major coffee companies and they’re currently going through the process of trying to secure their business models,” he says.

“We’re seeing a lot of volatility in the pricing of conventional coffee. More than 60 per cent of our product is made from date seeds, which are grown in the dessert and are tolerant of climate change. It’s a very resilient crop and the global supply continues to increase. Furthermore, consumers are starting to demand more around sustainability.”

Persuading roasters, who have only used a single material throughout their career, to switch to an alternative is no easy feat. Hoehn says that, although many in the industry seem resistant at first, once they try the product it’s much easier to convince them of its benefits.

“The coffee industry is extremely passionate and many people are already taking steps to make their businesses more sustainable. There are plenty of folks who are purists, but for us it’s been all about the little breakthroughs,” he says.

“When I first met Bluestone Lane’s head of coffee, I knew he wanted to hate it. But we tried it and he loved it. A few months later, our 50/50 drip blend is now served at all the roaster’s cafés across America.”

As well as selling direct to consumers from its website and Amazon, working with wholesale café clients across the world, and partnering with large roasters to introduce 50/50 blends, the company is also looking to develop a line of ‘green beans’. The vision is for roasters to be able to unleash their creativity on the profile and tasting notes.

“We’re looking at green beans as a potential extension of what we’re doing today to give even more flexibility. Ultimately, we would love to be up and down the coffee ecosystem as a way to bring bean-less coffee to the world,” says Hoehn.

Atomo’s current production method means the coffee is sold in a ground format, therefore a ‘whole bean’ range is also in the pipeline. While the possibilities for expansion and new products are endless, Hoehn believes the most important ambition is to stay true to the company’s founding principle.

“Even if it’s only incremental steps, we want to help coffee companies be more sustainable. The demand for coffee is growing by around 6 per cent year on year. We know there are currently great issues with supply caused by multiple factors, so there’s going to be a gap we could very comfortably live in and be a multi-billion dollar company,” he says.

“Atomo wants to do the best for the planet as partners to coffee. We see a bright future and continued growth for the industry.”

For more information, visit atomocoffee.com

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