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Starbucks in Japan develops new technology to raise dairy cows with coffee grounds

Published: 2026-04-24 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/04/24, Starbucks in Japan recently partnered with contact lens company Menicon to successfully develop the latest lactic acid fermentation technology so that coffee grounds can be converted into cow feed. Dairy cows that eat coffee grounds produce milk of excellent quality and have become a popular addition to Starbucks in Japan.

Coffee is the most traded agricultural product in the world, with 9.34 million packets of coffee beans in international circulation between 2009 and 2010 alone, while roasted and soaked coffee grounds are mostly discarded, buried, composted or burned. To solve the problem of waste of resources, Starbucks partnered with Menicon, a Japanese contact lens company, to develop the new technology that allows coffee grounds to be recycled.

According to the Guardian, Hehe, a professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Mabu University, said that somatic cells in milk are an important indicator of milk quality, and cows fed with coffee grounds do produce lower numbers of somatic cells than ordinary cows.

A spokesman for Starbucks in Japan said customers were mostly positive when they tried milk from cows raised with coffee grounds. In addition, Starbucks uses fermented coffee grounds as fertilizer for organic planting.

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