Keurig Alta Runs on CoffeeB, the Swiss Migros Pod Tech

The plastic-free pods in the new Keurig Alta are built on CoffeeB, the compressed-coffee system Swiss retailer Migros launched in Europe in 2022, blue News reports. Migros announced on Tuesday that the Alta is the first time the technology has gone on sale in North America.

According to the report, Keurig Dr Pepper signed the deal in 2024 and holds the exclusive rights to CoffeeB in the US, Canada and Mexico. The idea is the same one behind the AltaRounds: a portion of pressed coffee held together by a thin coating of alginate, made from seaweed, instead of a plastic or aluminum capsule. In Europe the portions are small balls. Blue News says the North American version was reworked into flat discs shaped like hockey pucks.

The European launch wasn’t smooth. Blue News says Migros spent a double-digit million sum on what it called the biggest product innovation in its history, and then ran into problems with both the machines and pod production. CoffeeB is now sold in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Scandinavia and the UAE, and Migros says more licensing deals are in the works through its Delica subsidiary.

Our take: this doesn’t change anything for US buyers yet, since the Alta is still the only machine here that takes these pods, and Keurig controls that. But it does mean the format has a few years of real-world use behind it in Europe, including the early teething problems. Our AltaRounds explainer covers what the pods cost per cup, and the CNET review we covered gets into how the espresso holds up.