Coffee: Company hopes to create alternative from native NZ plant

Fruit from the Coprosma plant. Photo / Zoffee

By Sally Murphy of RNZ

A new company is hoping to create a coffee alternative from a native New Zealand plant.

Zoffee founder and chief executive Jack Keeys said the idea first came to him a few years ago when he read an article from the 1870s about the Coprosma plant.

It talked about its great economic potential and interesting properties — but further research showed nothing had happened since.

Initial funding from the Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust three years ago helped develop a coffee-like drink, Keeys said, and now new funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries will help get the product to market.

“We want to create a product which tastes similar to coffee, gives you a similar experience, has human stimulants, tastes really good but is actually a bit healthier and has other medicinal properties in it as well.

“With the new funding from MPI we have a few work streams underway, we have just planted 1000 plants and another 3000 will go in the ground soon and we’ve got a product development stream where we are working with Food Innovation NZ to refine and optimise a great tasting product.”

Zoffee is also working with AbacusBio to create a cultivar of the plant that has high-yielding fruit that is resilient and has a high concentration of the bioactives.

“We’ve partnered with two farmers and are hoping to increase plantings with collaborator iwi Ngāti Tamaterā in the future.

“I’d like to see native Zoffee plantations all around New Zealand, the idea is that it can be used as a diversification option for farmers wanting to plant parts of their lower-performing land with something that’s going to improve the environment and still give them economic return.

Zoffee founder and chief executive Jack Keeys. Photo / Zoffee

“We also want to partner with iwi so there’s a land use opportunity that uses natives on indigenous land.”

Keeys said fruit can be harvested off the Coprosma plant after a couple of years, but for it to be full-yielding it takes about four or five years.

“We are still learning because nothing has been done with this plant before so we are figuring it out as we go.”

If everything goes to plan Zoffee should be on the shelves within 18 to 24 months, Keeys said.

“We are hoping to end up with all traditional formats of coffee but we will probably start with an instant and plunger option.”

- RNZ