The world is filled with great debates: tomato vs BBQ sauce, crunchy vs smooth peanut butter, and in the world of coffee, there’s ground versus whole bean.
This month, Convenience World takes a look at ground coffee and the benefits and disadvantages that come with it.
Business Director at FreshFood ANZ Karen de Leeuw says The House of Robert Timms supplies both whole bean and ground coffee.
“[We have] a range of ground coffee available in retail pack formats, which is targeted at the home consumer who doesn’t have access to a grinder,” she says.
What is pre-ground coffee?
The definition of pre-ground coffee is in its name. It’s whole coffee beans that have been ground before being packaged, or supplied to cafe, supermarket or consumer. Therefore, it skips the step of the consumer having to grind the coffee beans.
Many consumers when buying coffee from the supermarket will opt for the pre-ground format, especially if they don’t have the correct equipment.
Benefits include:
Less equipment
“Using ground coffee rather than whole beans provides benefits in specific instances, such as where separate grinders would be required because of the unique nature of the blend,” Ms de Leeuw says.
“Such instances include decaffeinated or organic coffee, where cross contamination of caffeinated coffee needs to be avoided so that the product isn’t adulterated.”
More blends
“The use of pre-ground coffee has the additional benefit that the cafe can use a variety of blends simultaneously without having separate grinders, such as having a single-origin offer alongside the house blend and a Fair Trade or organic.”
Consistency
Having the roasted beans pre-ground by the roaster on commercial-grade grinders will ensure consistency in grind, Ms de Leeuw says, “which will result in a better cup than if the whole beans were ground on a low-quality grinder”.
In the July/August issue of Convenience World we will focus on whole bean coffee and its benefits.
Click here to view the May/June issue of Convenience World, and read the full ground coffee feature.
