Prefer, a Singapore startup that makes a coffee substitute from fermented rice and chickpeas, has extended its partnership with Atlr.72, the sustainable food brand of the Japanese group Ajinomoto, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Japanese travel company JTB Group to develop ingredients and drinks for Asian markets, Green Queen reported.
Prefer uses food-grade microbes to ferment rice and chickpeas, which are then roasted and ground like coffee beans to release the same aroma compounds. Its ingredient, PreferRoast, can replace up to 40 percent of the coffee in commercial products, costs on average 50 percent less than arabica and has an 85 percent smaller carbon footprint, according to the company. It is sold to packaged-goods makers, food manufacturers, private-label retailers and flavour houses.
Atlr.72 will open a permanent shop at Jewel Changi Airport in January after a test launch of dairy-free and coffee-free drinks made with Finland's Solar Foods. "The shop will offer gelato, sweets, gift products and beverages, including coffee blended with Prefer's Coffee Extender," said Keiichi Murakami, general manager of the brand. He linked the deal to the renewed cooperation framework between Japan and Singapore on agriculture and food, which has added food technology.
Prefer's own ready-to-drink line is sold in 56 Shell convenience stores, 92 Sheng Siong outlets and 47 vending machines in Singapore, and its ingredient has been sold in the Philippines and Japan. The company is looking at Thailand next and plans a 500-tonne plant that would raise its capacity 50-fold, co-founder and chief technology officer Ding Jie Tan said.
The company presents the product as a response to climate pressure on coffee. Green Queen notes that between 2021 and 2025 Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Ethiopia and Indonesia, which supply 75 percent of the world's coffee, had 57 extra days of harmful heat above 30C, which stresses coffee plants and cuts yields and bean quality, and that global coffee prices hit a record in early 2025.
For farmers the story cuts both ways: the ingredient creates a new outlet for rice and chickpeas, while it is designed to stretch, and partly replace, the coffee bean.
Reporting by Anay Mridul for Green Queen.
Photo: Sanjay Acharya / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: Green Queen
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