NFT Coffee Pouches Are an Eye Opener

A new subscription coffee service, Bored Breakfast Club, is shaking things up with packaging that leverages the latest digital trend — NFTs.

Kate Bertrand Connolly, Freelance Writer

May 3, 2022

6 Min Read
Bored-Breakfast-Club-group-ftd.jpg
Images courtesy of Bored Breakfast Club

Bored Breakfast Club is bringing the metaverse and real-life packaging together with a digital-meets-analog approach that features nonfungible token (NFT) illustrations on its coffee pouches.

An NFT is a blockchain-based digital identifier that certifies the authenticity and ownership of a digital file containing unique content, such as artwork. Bored Breakfast Club’s clever strategy marries those virtual assets to physical packaging.

Developed by Los Angeles-based digital design studio Kley, Bored Breakfast Club is a subscription service that periodically ships a new whole-bean coffee blend, in packaging designed specifically for that blend, directly to consumers. The first blend shipped in February 2022 to 70 countries.

Although some of the blends are available to consumers paying with non-crypto payment methods, the brand’s business model favors club members — that is, Bored Breakfast Club NFT holders.

For all the product releases, consumers who own one of Bored Breakfast Club’s 5,000 NFTs qualify for a free “rewards” shipment. The brand’s NFTs were minted in January 2022, and the number of owners is currently 2,600.

Bored Breakfast Club NFTs reside on the Ethereum blockchain, and each NFT is sized for use as a banner in the owner’s chosen social network. Each NFT depicts a unique breakfast scene.

The brand’s packaging has so far featured ape-themed NFT illustrations that Kley owns. But going forward, the company plans to license NFTs from the Bored Breakfast Club community for use in its limited-time package designs.

Despite the on-pack apes, Bored Breakfast Club is not affiliated with Yuga Labs, creator of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

Bored Breakfast Club’s 12-oz coffee pouches are co-branded with the brand’s own logo and that of coffee roaster Yes Plz. Printed at the top of the pouch, next to the tear line, is the phrase, “Tear to Ape In.” In NFT-speak, “aping in” means rushing into an NFT or cryptocurrency.

The pouches ship in a small corrugated carton; the tape on the carton is decorated with both logos plus whimsical illustrations of coffee cups and breakfast foods. This unboxing video on Twitter displays the packaging for “Greasy Spoon,” Blend Two, which began shipping on April 2, 2022.

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The brand is currently working on a charitable project, the #StandWithUkraine coffee blend. Bored Breakfast Club will sell this special-edition blend for $25 per pouch, with 100% of proceeds going to refugee and humanitarian efforts in and around Ukraine. The projected ship date for #StandWithUkraine is May 21, 2022.

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In this exclusive Packaging Digest interview, Brad Klemmer, founder, Kley and Bored Breakfast Club, answers questions about the brand’s packaging, NFTs, and coffee and explains the nuances of this ground-breaking marketing strategy.

 

Did Kley design all the Bored Breakfast Club NFTs?

Klemmer: Yes, we worked with an illustrator to create the generative scenes. There are millions of possibilities, but only 5,000 were minted.

 

Who’s the target consumer for Bored Breakfast Club coffee?

Klemmer: We’ve built a community of coffee lovers, both novice and pro. The entire community has been helping to educate one another on how to make a great cup and NFTs alike.

 

How does the NFT packaging and distribution model appeal to these consumers?

Klemmer: We’ve built an exclusive club that receives tangible rewards in the form of ongoing reward shipments. NFTs give us a tangible connection between our brand and the consumer.

We have access to data and feedback in real time, which helps us make business decisions and give our consumers exactly what they’re looking for, which helps propel our business forward in every aspect, while the consumer is being rewarded with constant and exclusive perks and benefits on an ongoing basis.

In addition to the great coffee they receive, we host a ton of community events in our Discord [community] and are continuously building out our digital content library to help educate people on coffee and how to make a great cup at home — teaching them about what they’re missing out on. And challenging their perception of what quality is. We know that with the smallest amount of effort, they can be enjoying better coffee at home than any coffee shop they may frequent, and at a fraction of the price.

The packaging is something the NFT community loves and shares a [lot] on social. We also have a program we call Blends with Friends, where we feature NFT art from other projects as a way of engaging and collaborating with other projects and communities.

 

Did you work with Desperate ApeWives (an NFT collection and community) on the Bored Breakfast Club project? If so, what was DAW’s role?

Klemmer: Desperate ApeWives (DAW) was one of our Blends with Friends releases. We simply partnered with them to release a one-time drop featuring a DAW on the packaging. 

 

How do Bored Breakfast Club NFT holders get their NFTs on your packaging?

Klemmer: Currently, the apes on the packaging are owned by Kley, but in the future we’ll be licensing them from our community for use on our ephemeral packaging. Holders will sign a simple contract and be compensated for the use of their ape/NFT.

 

What is “ephemeral packaging”?

Klemmer: Meaning that each release is unique and one-time. So we don’t have to worry about anyone’s intellectual property (IP) being leveraged after they may have sold the NFT to someone else. [Note: All Bored Breakfast Club blends are unique, limited-time offerings, so all the products are packaged in unique, aka ephemeral, packaging. Three products have shipped to date.]

 

How do you print your physical coffee packaging?

Klemmer: The bags are digitally printed.

 

What is your production volume for each blend that you release?

Klemmer: For each release, we roast enough to send one bag per NFT in our collection, which is 5,000.

 

How often do you ship a new blend?

Klemmer: Currently we’re about five to six weeks apart, but this will be dictated by the funding of the Community Coffee Wallet moving forward. [Note: Reward shipments are completely paid for by the Community Coffee Wallet.]

The Community Coffee Wallet is funded by royalties on secondary market sales — we have a royalty on Bored Breakfast Club NFTs that flows straight into the Community Coffee Wallet — but it’s also a piece of every decision we’ll make moving forward, from merch sales, coffee sales, and Blends with Friends, which are collaborations with other established NFT projects where we release exclusive blends while utilizing the IP of partner projects so they have a way of rewarding their communities with tangible goods. Who doesn’t love coffee?

 

Can consumers buy Bored Breakfast Club coffee online with a credit card? Or must they use their Bored Breakfast Club NFT to get a shipment of coffee?

Klemmer: Reward shipments are only available to NFT holders, but special-edition drops and Blends with Friends are available to the general public — though NFT holders do receive a discount.

 

Is there anything else about this packaging, the coffee, and NFTs that you’d like to add?

Klemmer: I’d encourage you to check out our Twitter feed to see holders from all over the world posting their coffee packages. 

About the Author

Kate Bertrand Connolly

Freelance Writer

Kate Bertrand Connolly has been covering innovations, trends, and technologies in packaging, branding, and business since 1981.

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