The following content originally appeared in issue 62 of Cooler Plus, which you can subscribe to here.
In a recent interview, Cooler Plus sat with Alain Adler, director at Belgium’s leading watercooler company Sip-Well, to talk about its entry into and success in the office coffee business with Belmoca.
What made Sip-Well enter the coffee capsule business?
About eight years ago we have decided that offering a complimentary product to our customers is essential for both water consumption (don’t forget that coffee is indeed water and the best coffee is made out of the best water) and bringing further added value to our customers.
This is how this long journey began.
But now we see that you are even diversifying your product range?
Indeed, when we began we developed our aluminium capsule of Belmoca and started to sell this in Belgium and in other countries. Today, the Belmoca product line is selling in close to 20 countries, and three years ago we have been challenged to produce the first and only Nespresso compatible capsule in aluminium.
That proved to be a formidable challenge for many reasons. Technically, due to Nespresso patents, we needed to overcome some obvious limitations, but the process took us to an exciting path of innovation. We now have a patent on our Nespresso compatible aluminum capsule and what seems to be a huge success in the making.
We see that the Nespresso compatible coffee capsule is today a standard product that can be bought in many retail outlets. Where do you sell your product?
The number of Nespresso coffee machines around the world is growing every day and people around the world can now choose freely to buy a variety of products that fit into their Nespresso machine.
Why an aluminum capsule?
Today, there are over 130 producers around the world who are producing Nespresso compatible capsules, all in plastic. Coffee in a plastic capsule will never have the same taste and the preservation of aroma as coffee in an aluminium capsule. The original choice that Nespresso made was opting for the best, not the cheapest and their choice of getting into an aluminium capsule was the result of their choice for the best.
We are proud to be the only company other than Nespresso to introduce an aluminium capsule in this product range.
We understand that some heavy investments were needed. Can you elaborate?
I cannot get into all the details but let me assure you that the investments needed were in the millions of Euro’s and we will need to continuously invest in this product as the demand for it grows worldwide.
Are there any numbers you can share with us?
It is estimated that Nespresso sold last year some 9 billion coffee capsules. If you take into consideration the fact that this phenomenal amount of coffee capsules have been sold by one company – where the consumer bought it directly from them, either in their boutiques around the world or on the internet – you cannot help but admire the job they have done. Obviously we are aiming high and obviously we believe that the product has an enormous potential, but we are in the very beginning of our journey and hope to continue towards a successful product.
Are you offering Sip-Well customers your product range today?
Obviously this was the reason we got into this business to begin with. We are seeing a tremendous success in offering our customers both the Nespresso capsule and the Belmoca capsule and I think that any watercooler company should indeed look into the possibilities of offering such a complementary product to their customers.
What other revenues derive from your coffee activity?
We started with Belmoca and moved to Belmio. Those two product lines no doubt have different potentials in the market today and while Belmoca is a strategic product that will survive on its own, the Belmio product – which is the Nespresso compatible capsule – has a tremendous appeal with immediate market penetration possible. The fact that in the hands of the consumer today there are so many millions of Nespresso machines, brings the likelihood of the consumer buying a Nespresso compatible capsule to the very high probability and no doubt that an aluminium capsule will come very close to the real thing and even better. We are on target on our sales and hope to remain on course for the next three years.”
Can we be bold enough to ask: what is your target?
Well, we have a short and medium term plan, our first short term is a three year plan to reach €150 million annually. It seems we will surpass that both in time speed and in the amounts, but we have still a long way to go.
Are there any other innovative products in the pipeline?
As you know, in our company nobody sits still, and we will introduce an exciting addition to our ever growing and diversified product line later this year.
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