Fuelling our NESCAFÉ^® factory with coffee

When you think of steam power, you probably think of old locomotives from the history books. But good old water vapour is at the beating heart of our modern, clean factories.

For instance, how do you think coffee granules are made? The process actually only uses pure water and steam.

The way we make our steam is, too. The coffee grounds left over from the brewing process that makes your cup of NESCAFÉ^® are being used to power the NESCAFÉ^® factory in Gympie, Queensland.

Over 60 per cent of the energy used by the factory comes from renewable sources including spent coffee grounds. Talk about an energy hit! 

The spent coffee grounds fuel a boiler generating the steam needed in the manufacturing process. The renewable energy that we produce is equivalent to the energy needed to power 10,000 homes (over 40% of the homes in Gympie).

But there’s more – this keeps the spent coffee grounds out of our waste stream, reducing waste transportation and disposal.

Factory Manager Steve Taljaard said, “Our team takes sustainability seriously, and we work hard to reduce our environmental impact, while still creating a great cup of NESCAFÉ^® coffee. Using spent coffee grounds in the manufacturing process is a perfect example of seeing waste as a resource. We’re proud to be creating efficiencies within our factory to make our coffee production more sustainable.”

The use of renewable energy at the NESCAFÉ^® factory is just one part of Nestlé’s actions to achieve our global ambition of net zero emissions by 2050. As part of this journey, by 2025 every Nestlé site worldwide will use 100% renewable electricity.

All of this means that whenever you make a lovely steaming cup of NESCAFÉ^®, you can enjoy it knowing that we are helping to improve our impact on the environment.