Coffee is facing a crunch. Rising costs and environmental concerns have cast a shadow over one of the world’s most consumed drinks — coming in third behind only water and tea — putting a damper on the cup of joe that starts many a worker’s day.
For one start-up in Singapore, this all presents an opportunity. Prefer, founded in 2022 by Tan Ding Jie and Jake Berber, is tackling coffee’s problems head-on with an alternative that takes the crop out of the equation.
Tan and Berber met in 2022 at Entrepreneur First, a UK-based accelerator that has since ceased operations here.
“DJ (Ding Jie) and I shared the belief that we could use fermentation to create affordable and sustainable ingredients,” Berber tells Options. Tan, at the time, had already racked up the moniker “Prince of Fermentation” through his work helping restaurants and bars develop recipes with fermented ingredients.
From there, the duo quickly converged on the idea of creating an alternative to coffee, a plant that’s as much affected by climate change as it is a contributor to the phenomenon.
See also: Round the island with MO BAR's latest menu, 'The Echoes of Singapore'
Grounds for change
One of the most heavily traded commodities in the world, coffee is among the most vulnerable crops amid increasingly erratic weather patterns; severe droughts since 2023 have resulted in poor harvests from major producers Brazil and Vietnam.
See also: The Glenrothes wants you to smash its GBP37,000 whisky bottle
Worsening conditions pose an existential risk to coffee. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists arabica, the species most commonly seen in “western-style” coffee, as endangered.
The unstable supply has also led to volatile prices. Futures for arabica beans hit a 47-year high last November; rates have since moderated somewhat, though they’re still up over 50% from a year ago. Robusta, the other main species more commonly used in local kopi and for instant mixes, saw prices rise about 40% throughout 2024.
Beyond supply woes, coffee cultivation has negative impacts on the environment at each step along its value chain. The excessive use of fertilisers, for instance, can acidify and degrade soil; improper disposal of materials such as dead trees and wastewater can also lead to increased production of greenhouse gases like methane.
According to Terrascope, which operates a carbon measurement platform, a single 12-ounce Americano produces 0.258kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). If you’re the sort who drinks a cup every morning, that nearly adds up to the emissions incurred from driving a car for 350km.
With its bean-free analogue, Prefer is hoping to provide a more environmentally friendly, cost-effective option for F&B players.
That said, Berber maintains that the company isn’t looking to replace coffee altogether. “We’re not looking to disrupt the industry or create completely standalone coffee alternatives,” he says.
For more lifestyle, arts and fashion trends, click here for Options Section
Instead, the idea is for coffee companies to use Prefer’s product as a means to reduce costs, which might then be passed on to consumers. Berber notes that demand for coffee is expected to triple between now and 2050, putting a strain on producers and likely impacting prices.
The secret sauce
To make its bean-free coffee, Prefer uses a blend of byproducts from food manufacturing. These are sourced from partner companies in Singapore; among others, Gardenia supplies surplus bread, and Mr Bean provides soya bean pulp. The ingredients are then all fermented and roasted, before being ground and packaged.
“What we’re making here are essentially coffee flavours,” says Tan. “We use microbes to break down these ingredients and reverse engineer them, to recreate the same key aroma volatiles that you find in coffee.”
Though he declines to get into the nitty gritty of how things go down at the production stage, he shares that it took about two years to get the process from a rough prototype to a solution ready to bring to market. Even then, the Prefer team “continues to work on improving the taste and flavour” of its bean-free product.
Prefer produces bags of bean-free grounds; these are sold to companies such as Bettr Coffee, which sells drinks with the analogue at its location in The Foundry. Prefer also makes bottled oat milk lattes using its bean-free coffee, and most recently launched a canned version of the same.
Berber points out that the latter consumer-targeted products aren’t quite the end goal for Prefer, but the current range has shown such potential B2B partners that “it’s a product that people in the market are really excited about”.
Serving strategy
Prefer, which touts itself as the first bean-free coffee in Southeast Asia, joins a growing crop of startups around the world that are bringing coffee analogues to the market. In the US, there’s Atomo, which introduced its version in 2021. Over in Europe, Dutch brand Northern Wonder produces coffee-free capsules, “espresso” grounds and filter blends.
The steady growth in this segment is no doubt reminiscent of a boom that took place nearly a decade ago: the meat-free craze.
In 2012, the first products by Beyond Meat hit the market. Four years later, Impossible Burgers entered the scene. The surge spread over the following years, with Beyond landing among the top-performing initial public offerings when it was listed on the Nasdaq in 2019.
Since then, however, demand has waned. Beyond posted a 9.1% annual decrease in revenue for the first quarter of 2025; its market capitalisation has fallen from a peak of US$14 billion ($18 billion) to less than US$250 million.
Asked how they see bean-free coffee relative to other alternatives, Berber says what differentiates Prefer’s product from Beyond’s is its value proposition. Whereas meat-free producers tend to focus on the sustainability side of things, Prefer is marketing its solution from an economic perspective.
Berber points out that, for its B2B partners, Prefer’s analogue is already more affordable than traditional coffee on the market today, especially given the crop’s rising prices. “Instead of the market needing to warm up to this alternative, we’ve framed it as a more affordable thing,” he adds.
“We’re solving an actual business problem for our B2B partners, and for consumers, we’re solving a price problem.”
Brewing up success
All this is helping Prefer inch towards profitability, a goal Berber says will require a step-up in scale. He adds that revenues are “in the hundreds of thousands” annually.
Recognition has also started pouring in. In March, the company was named among 10 winners of the THAIFEX – HOREC Innovation Awards. The awards, which were part of the annual hotels, restaurants and catering trade event, recognise innovations that elevate energy efficiency and quality standards.
“These are nice surprises,” says Tan of such accolades. “We expect standards for ourselves, but we don’t expect to be validated externally.” Awards aside, he believes the best recognition is “for customers to purchase our product and put it on their shelves”.
Moving forward, Tan and Berber are seeking to bring bean-free coffee to more hotels and restaurants; they’re also hoping to break into the catering segment. Besides cafes, Prefer has its oat milk lattes stocked at fast food chain Guzman Y Gomez’s outlets islandwide.
Restaurants and bars here are also picking up Prefer’s bean-free coffee to include in their offerings. Among the venues where it can be found as part of cocktails and desserts are MO BAR and Fura.
Berber teases that an instant coffee analogue is in the works, and that this would be marketed to businesses as an ingredient rather than a standalone product.
The duo is also looking at how they can apply what Prefer has done with bean-free coffee to other products. Already, a prototype cocoa-free chocolate has been made, with plans to commercialise this year. (Similar to coffee, cocoa is a major contributor to climate change, and the crop has been significantly impacted by erratic weather, leading to price spikes.)
For now, Tan and Berber are hopeful about moving things up and onwards with Prefer. Beyond new products, the company is expanding outside of Singapore, with a planned collaboration in the Philippines set for this year.
“I just love seeing how far we can take this thing,” Berber concludes. “We’re going to make it as big as possible.”
