Profile Overview
Ecotact began by solving a fundamental problem in coffee: preserving it through the long journey from origin to destination. Over nearly two decades, the Indian company has developed packaging solutions as storage practices, shipping conditions, and industry requirements have evolved. Today, it is moving beyond packaging into monitoring systems that help the industry better understand what happens to coffee after it leaves the farm. Its journey reflects how an Indian company has grown alongside global coffee, continually developing solutions to the crop's challenges.
A great deal happens to coffee after it leaves a farm.
It is stored, sampled, packed, moved to warehouses, loaded into containers, and shipped across oceans. Along the way, it encounters humidity, moisture, oxygen and unpredictable delays that can affect its quality.
Much of this remains invisible until the coffee reaches its destination. For Ecotact, understanding this overlooked part of coffee’s journey became the foundation of its business.
Coffee was not, however, the industry the company originally imagined working in. It began in packaging and international trade, driven by a question: how could food be preserved naturally, without relying on insecticides and pesticides? That question eventually led the company into coffee, taking Ecotact from India to more than 70 countries.
Today, the company works with producers, exporters, traders and roasters, developing products for different stages of the coffee supply chain. Its story also reflects how packaging has evolved as the surrounding industry has become more complex.
Where the Journey Began
Hanuman Jain grew up with some exposure to packaging through his father’s logistics business in a small town at the India–Nepal border, where they were exporting jute from Nepal. Only later did he connect the material to the coffee and cacao industries.
“I did not see that I would be in the coffee industry,” Hanuman says.
His interest lay in international business. While spending time in Cameroon in the late 2000s, he came across research on preserving grains and lentils without insecticides or pesticides. The idea was to protect what was already inside a product without adding chemicals.
That became the foundation Ecotact would build on.
When the company began working with coffee, it applied the same principle: preserving the crop in its inherent form and protecting the flavour and aroma it had developed. Its first shipment went to Rwanda around 2009–2010, as the country’s coffee industry worked to strengthen its international presence.
One market led to another. Today, Ecotact operates in over 70 countries, with its work increasingly focused on preserving coffee under different storage and transit conditions.
Learning What Coffee Needed
Ecotact’s first coffee-specific product was a hermetic packaging solution designed to fit inside the traditional 60-kilo jute bag.
Introducing the concept was not always easy. Many in the industry believed coffee needed to “breathe”. Hermetically sealing it raised questions about why an additional layer was necessary.
The answer lay in what coffee encountered during storage and transit: moisture, oxygen and insects. Packaging was not simply about containing coffee; it was about protecting its quality throughout the journey.
“The coffee industry is open to newer ideas,” Hanuman says. “They’re more open compared to any other industry.”
For Ecotact, developing packaging meant recognising that no single format could address every requirement. Shipment sizes varied, storage durations differed, and transit routes brought their own challenges. As the coffee trade diversified, the solutions needed to evolve with it.
Developing Solutions for a Changing Supply Chain
One of Ecotact’s familiar products began with an observation in Peru. During a visit to exporters, the team noticed that coffee samples were sometimes stored and transported in newspapers and even garbage bags.
Samples play an important role in coffee trading. Before larger quantities are purchased, small lots travel between producers, exporters and buyers. Yet there was little standardisation around how these samples were protected.
Ecotact developed sampler bags to address this gap, creating packaging suited to the small quantities that often determine whether a larger purchase will take place.
As the company expanded its range, another challenge emerged: transporting coffee at scale. Shipping delays during and after the pandemic made transit times less predictable, increasing the importance of protecting coffee throughout longer journeys. Ecotact expanded into container liners and bulk solutions to address the requirements of larger shipments.
Sometimes, the company’s own operations taught the most.
Navneet Jain joined Ecotact after completing his studies and initially focused on export procedures and documentation. He recalls moisture-related damage affecting the company’s own jute shipments during long-haul transit.
Ecotact was already developing its Ship Shield container liners. The team tested them on its own shipments, significantly reducing the moisture and condensation problems.
A solution developed for the coffee industry also applied to Ecotact’s operations. These developments show how the company’s range expanded from individual coffee bags to solutions for samples, bulk shipments, and the uncertainties of international transit.
Becoming Part of the Industry
“We want to be industry insiders,” Hanuman says.
For Ecotact, this means understanding coffee beyond the packaging it sells. Its work sits at the intersection of material science, storage conditions, logistics and quality preservation. A solution must account for what coffee encounters throughout its journey, not simply the product it is designed to contain.
Sayantan Bhattacharjee, who leads sales, describes how the company’s work extends beyond the capabilities of existing products. Examining storage, logistics, and operational challenges helps identify where new solutions may be needed, even when not every problem requires a new product.
This understanding has also shaped Ecotact’s growth in India. When domestic buyers were less familiar with the company, international relationships helped establish its presence. One early push came when an Australian buyer asked Indian suppliers to use Ecotact packaging. Indian companies soon began adopting it.
In a sense, Ecotact travelled the world before returning to the Indian coffee industry.
From India to Coffee’s World
Ecotact manufactures in Kolkata, operating a facility with European extrusion lines and food-packaging certifications. Its team in India includes more than 100 people, supported by channel partners worldwide.
Its international growth has unfolded alongside changes within Indian coffee. Regions in the Northeast, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, not traditionally at the centre of the country’s coffee conversation, have begun developing their own relationship with the crop.
“The coffee industry is open to newer ideas; they’re more open compared to any other industry.”
- Hanuman Jain
As these coffee communities grow, so does the need for production infrastructure. Storage, processing, logistics, and packaging may sit outside the main work of growing coffee, but they shape how safely it travels and ultimately reaches the market.
Ecotact’s work increasingly occupies this space, addressing the conditions surrounding coffee between harvest and destination.
Knowing More About What Coffee Goes Through
For years, Ecotact’s central concern was preservation. Increasingly, however, protecting coffee is only part of the challenge. Understanding the conditions it experiences during storage and transit can give those responsible for its movement another layer of information.
This thinking led to Trace IQ, which provides information on humidity, temperature, light exposure and location during storage and transit. At World of Coffee in Brussels, the product won the Best New Product Award.
The development marks a shift in what Ecotact’s solutions can offer. While packaging helps protect coffee from external conditions, monitoring systems make those conditions visible. The focus now extends beyond preservation to real-time understanding of coffee’s journey.
Ecotact is also exploring solutions for drying yards, where processors must account for variables such as humidity, temperature and airflow. Monitoring these conditions could help people better understand and manage this crucial stage of coffee production.
The company is also exploring applications beyond coffee, including cacao, nuts, dairy, meat, and fish. Each has distinct storage and transportation requirements, but the underlying question remains the same: how can a product be protected while preserving its inherent qualities?
Still Learning From Coffee
Coffee has changed considerably since Ecotact began its journey. Smaller lots are entering markets more often, consumers are experimenting with different origins and varieties, and home roasting has grown. These shifts have created new requirements, from packaging for roasted coffee to single-portion concepts.
Ecotact’s offerings have also evolved alongside these changes, from hermetic bags and sampler formats to container liners, bulk solutions and real-time monitoring systems. Each addresses a different challenge, but all are rooted in understanding the conditions under which coffee is stored, transported and handled.
A sample that must retain its quality before a buyer decides. A shipment exposed to moisture during a long journey. A container delayed at sea. A drying yard where conditions need closer monitoring. Each presents a different challenge, and each calls for a solution suited to the circumstances.
Ecotact’s journey is more than a story about an Indian company taking a product to global markets. It is about how a company has grown alongside an industry, adapting as the requirements of coffee storage, transportation and handling have changed.
An Indian company that began by trying to preserve what was inside a bag is now exploring ways to understand the conditions surrounding coffee throughout its journey.
Before coffee reaches a roastery, a café or someone’s cup, everything happens in between. After nearly two decades of developing ways to preserve freshness, the company is now entering its next phase: shaping the future of freshness.
