Made in Greece τα Coffee Island: Με άρωμα ''ελληνικού'' καφέ βάζουν ''πλώρη'' για Καναδά & Μεγάλη Βρετανία!

Το 2014, η Coffee Island κατάφερε να πετύχει στο έπακρο τους στόχους που είχε θέσει, ισχυροποιώντας την αναγνωσιμότητά της, αυξάνοντας το μερίδιο αγοράς, μέσω επέκτασης των καταστημάτων της, και θέτοντας παράλληλα γερές βάσεις στον τομέα της διοίκησης και της εσωτερικής οργάνωσης.

24 Φεβ 2015 - 10:59πμ

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Το 2015 βρίσκει την Coffee Island με 65 νέα καταστήματα franchise, αριθμώντας πλέον το δίκτυό της σε 236 καταστήματα, με τα μελλοντικά πλάνα ανάπτυξης να αφορούν στην περαιτέρω ανάπτυξη στην Ελλάδα, αλλά και στο εξωτερικό, με άμεσους στόχους το Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο και τον Καναδά.
Σε μεγαλύτερη επέκταση σε αγορές του εξωτερικού προσανατολίζεται η διοίκηση της ελληνικής Coffee Island για το 2015, αναζητώντας διεξόδους στις πιέσεις που ασκεί η οικονομική κρίση στις εγχώριες επιχειρήσεις.
Με παρουσία περίπου 15 χρόνων στην αγορά, η επιχείρηση γνωρίζει τα τελευταία χρόνια ουσιαστική ανάπτυξη υπό τον CEO, Κωνσταντίνο Κωνσταντινόπουλο, ξεκινώντας στα πρώτα του βήματα ως διευθυντής Παραγωγής. Τα πρώτα βήματα της σημερινής επιχείρησης γίνονται το 1999, στην Πάτρα, μετουσιώνοντας ένα παραδοσιακό καφεκοπτείο… σε μοντέρνα οπτική! Μια διαφορετική πρόταση που κατάφερε να πείσει από την πρώτη στιγμή όλους εκείνους που θεωρούν τον καφέ σοβαρή υπόθεση. Σύντομα, το πρώτο Coffee Island γίνεται αναπόσπαστο κομμάτι της γειτονιάς και της τοπικής κουλτούρας.

Το 2006 ιδρύεται η μονάδα παραγωγής για τη μεταποίηση του καφέ, επενδύοντας σε εξοπλισμό και τεχνογνωσία, κυρίως από την Ιταλία. Ενώ, λίγα χρόνια αργότερα, το 2009, αρχίζουν οι πρώτες επιχειρηματικές δραστηριότητες στο εξωτερικό, εγκαινιάζοντας το πρώτο κατάστημα Coffee Island στη Λευκωσία. Μέσα σε τρία χρόνια η επιχείρηση καταφέρνει να δημιουργήσει ένα ισχυρό δίκτυο καταστημάτων στην Κύπρο, το οποίο συνεχώς αναπτύσσεται αριθμώντας σήμερα 27 καταστήματα.
Το 2010 ανακαινίζονται πλήρως τα καταστήματα και εντάσσονται οι υπηρεσίες take away (Coffee on-the-go), υιοθετώντας το σημερινό concept που συνδυάζει τη ζεστασιά του παραδοσιακού καφεκοπτείου με τον αέρα και την αύρα ενός μοντέρνου espresso bar. Η συγκεκριμένη πρωτοποριακή στροφή στην πορεία των καταστημάτων ικανοποίησε τις σύγχρονες ανάγκες των πελατών της, καταξιώνοντας την στις συνειδήσεις των καταναλωτών.
Πριν από περίπου τρία χρόνια, το 2012, η εταιρεία δημιουργεί δύο υπερσύγχρονες μονάδες μεταποίησης και συσκευασίας καφέ στην Πάτρα και επεκτείνει τις υπάρχουσες αποθήκες της. Η επένδυση σε μηχανολογικό εξοπλισμό δίνει τη δυνατότητα να εξασφαλίσει τη μέγιστη ποιότητα στο πλαίσιο της δεδομένης αύξησης της παραγωγής, που προκύπτει από τη συνεχόμενη επέκταση του δικτύου των καταστημάτων της.

Σύμφωνα με τη διοίκηση, από την ίδρυση της μέχρι σήμερα, η Coffee Island δίνει την ευκαιρία στους λάτρεις του καφέ να απολαμβάνουν μία μεγάλη ποικιλία από νέα χαρμάνια αλλά και πλήθος χρηστικών αντικειμένων για την παρασκευή ενός γευστικού, άκρως ποιοτικού καφέ. Η ανταπόκριση του κοινού μεταφράζεται και σε αριθμούς, με την αλυσίδα να απαριθμεί πλέον 236 καταστήματα σε Ελλάδα και εξωτερικό.
Η διοίκηση της επιχείρησης θέτει νέους στόχους για την εξάπλωση του δικτύου Coffee Island στη Ρουμανία, πέραν του πρώτου καταστήματος που λειτουργεί ήδη από τον Αύγουστο του 2012 στην πόλη της Τιμισοάρα, καθώς επίσης και στην Αλβανία, τη Βουλγαρία, το Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, αλλά και σε μη ευρωπαϊκές χώρες, όπως ο Καναδάς.
Μάλιστα, ανταποκρινόμενη στο κάλεσμα των καταναλωτών και των συνεργατών της, υιοθετήθηκε μια νέα οπτική ταυτότητα (επανασχεδιασμός λογοτύπου και packaging), σύγχρονο επικοινωνιακό προφίλ και νέο αρχιτεκτονικό ύφος στα καταστήματα.

Ανάπτυξη...
Η μεγάλη «στροφή» στην πορεία της επιχείρησης έγινε τα τελευταία πέντε χρόνια, όταν αναδομήθηκε εξ ολοκλήρου, αλλάζοντας το ύφος των καταστημάτων της. Το 2012, ενάντια στην κρίση, η εταιρεία επενδύει σε καινούργιες εγκαταστάσεις και υπερσύχρονο μηχανολογικό εξοπλισμό, με στόχο να μειώσει το κόστος του τελικού προϊόντος και να βελτιώσει ακόμη περισσότερο την ποιότητα του, προσφέροντας ασφάλεια στο δίκτυο των καταστημάτων της.
Οι επενδύσεις σε πάγια, εγκαταστάσεις και εξοπλισμό, σε εκπαίδευση δικαιοδόχων και στελεχών της μητρικής εταιρείας, σε έρευνα και ανάπτυξη, καθώς επίσης και σε διαφημιστικά πλάνα δεν σταματούν ποτέ για μια εταιρεία που έχει στόχο να βελτιώνεται συνέχεια και να ξεπερνά τον εαυτό της. Το τμήμα Έρευνας και Ανάπτυξης εξετάζει την πρώτη ύλη, η οποία προέρχεται από την Κεντρική Αμερική, την Κένυα, την Αιθιοπία και την Ινδία. Στα ιδιόκτητα εργοστάσια στην Πάτρα γίνεται η επεξεργασία, όπου από τον ωμό κόκκο γίνεται το ψήσιμο και το χαρμάνιασμα.

SUCCESS STORY

• Το 2006 δημιουργείται η μονάδα παραγωγής για τη μεταποίηση του καφέ, επενδύοντας σε εξοπλισμό και τεχνογνωσία, κυρίως από την Ιταλία.
• Το 2009 ξεκίνησαν οι πρώτες δραστηριότητες στο εξωτερικό, εγκαινιάζοντας το πρώτο κατάστημα Coffee Island στη Λευκωσία.
• Μέσα σε τρία χρόνια καταφέρνει να δημιουργήσει ένα ισχυρό δίκτυο καταστημάτων στην Κύπρο, το οποίο αναπτύσσεται συνεχώς.
• Το 2010 ανακαινίζονται πλήρως τα καταστήματα, εντάσσοντας τις υπηρεσίες take away (Coffee on-the-go).
• Το 2012 δημιουργούνται δύο υπερσύγχρονες μονάδες μεταποίησης και συσκευασίας καφέ στην Πάτρα, επεκτείνοντας παράλληλα τις υπάρχουσες αποθήκες.

Inside Counter Culture’s New Bay Area Roastery and Training Center

April 29, 2015 12:03 pm

All photos by Christy Baugh, courtesy of Counter Culture Coffee

Counter Culture Coffee took a big step in its ongoing Westward expansion this past weekend with the opening of its new Bay Area roastery and training lab, a 12,000-plus square-foot facility at 1329 64th Street in Emeryville.
It is the importer and roaster’s ninth regional training center (Durham, Asheville, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.), and Counter Culture plans two open additional training centers later this year in Charleston, S.C., and Los Angeles.
The West Coast coffee operations will be coordinated with those at the Durham headquarters, as well as those at other regional training centers. The Bay Area roastery is the company’s first outside of Durham. (See more from our interview last July with CC West Coast Coffee Analyst Katie Carguilo.)
We’ll have more on CC’s growth plans as they develop. For now, here’s more from inside the new Emeryville center:

La Spaziale Unveiling Top-of-Line S40 Suprema Next Month in Milan

The La Spaziale S40 Suprema

Bologna, Italy-based La Spaziale is launching the S40 Suprema espresso machine, which is being pitched as a more automated and barista-friendly alternative to its other top-of-the-line model, the S40 Selectron.
La Spaziale says the Suprema provides numerous technically advanced features that make the machine more practical for use in high-volume applications, while maintaining the aesthetic and many of the same quality controls as the Selectron and other models in the S40 line.
The company is debuting the Suprema at the upcoming TuttoFood 2015 show in Milan.
Available in 2-to-4-group models, the Suprema includes La Spaziale’s electric coffee grounds system (EGS), which maintains humidity levels within the portafilter. Other key features include LED lighting in the drip tray, and programming of scheduled, standard maintenance, of which operators are notified through the S40’s large, bright LED displays.

There is also independent temperature control for each group and an advanced machine temperature controls, including a temporary boost function, all of which are easily accessed through a main LED display or individual displays above the group heads.
Optional features include an adjustable automatic milk frothing system, as well as a soft varnish exterior finish.
Here are some more features, straight from La Spaziale:

• Electronic coffee machine with automatic dose setting.

• Electronic boiler temperature control.

• Boiler temperature visualization on led display.

• Visualization of extraction time on led display for each group.

• Individual temperature control for each delivery group (ITC).

• EGS Function (Electronic Coffee Grounds System).

• Operating temperature temporary boost function (UP function).

• Visualization and control system of water level in the boiler.

• Preset hot water delivery for infusions with adjustable temperature.

• Led lights for drip tray grid.

• Total coffee counter function.

• Electric cup warmer with consistent temperature control.

Coffee Price: Latest Price & Chart for Coffee - NASDAQ.com

Coffee Price: Latest Price & Chart for Coffee - NASDAQ.com

First Global Study on Climate Change and Arabica Predicts ‘Severe Losses’

April 

2011 Creative Commons photo by Neil Palmer for CIAT.

Arabica coffees will have to be grown at higher elevations in almost all the world’s producing regions to survive the projected effects of climate change by 2050, according to a the first global study of its kind, which is being made public by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).
Researchers suggest severe losses in global arabica production are imminent if coffee growing doesn’t shift toward higher elevations in many countries. Such a shift, by virtue of limited land availability, hurt many of the world’s key growing regions, particularly in parts of Mesoamerica and Asia. Conversely, increases and temperature and rainfall could add some suitable coffee-growing land in specific areas, particularly some close to the equator in South America.
“Major producers — Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia — together producing 65 percent of the global market share — are set to experience severe losses if adaptation measures are not taken,” CIAT said in response to the published results.
The study suggests that Brazil, by far the world’s largest producer, could face losses of up to 25 percent if adaptation measures are not taken. “Brazil’s highly mechanized, commercial coffee production is not suitable for intercropping with trees, which could provide shade and bring temperatures down,” said study co-author Dr. Peter Läderach. “That could mean shifting production east — from Central America to eastern Africa and the Asia-Pacific, if strategies are not put in place to adapt.”
The research was funded by CIAT’s CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, although CIAT says the program played no part in the design or analysis of the study. The study follows numerous regional studies that have yielded similar projections for the future of arabica coffee.
Researchers based the 2050 climate change projections using 21 global circulation models and 62,000 specific location points, suggesting that in many locations, 2 degree celsius increases in temperature and increases in weather events such as rain can be expected. Generally, the study globally predicts decreases in climatic suitability at lower altitudes and higher latitudes.
Here is some regional and global analysis directly from the study (CIAT plans to eventually release the raw data here).

All the coffee-producing countries in America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania would maintain some suitability for growing Arabica coffee. Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Guatemala have extensive areas of land at high elevation that receive sufficient rainfall. An upward move of their coffee-growing areas could moderate the overall impact of climate change on their countries’ coffee industry. An important proviso is that the areas at higher elevation are available for conversion to coffee farms, are accessible, have suitable soil conditions, and whose current or future inhabitants are willing to grow Arabica coffee rather than other crops. Very often, these conditions may not all come together, with the consequence that Arabica coffee production may locally decline.
The regions where Arabica coffee would be least affected by higher temperatures are East Africa with the exception of Uganda and Papua New Guinea in the Pacific. Mesoamerica would be the most affected region, specifically Nicaragua and El Salvador. Since Arabica coffee is an important export of Mesoamerica, we expect severe economic impacts here. As previously suggested by Zullo, strongly negative effects of climate change are also expected in Brazil the world’s largest Arabica producer, as well as India and Indochina. Regions predicted to suffer intermediate impacts include the Andes, parts of southern Africa and Madagascar, and Indonesia, with significant differences among islands.

Click here for access to the complete study.

Russian Federation Joins International Coffee Association as Consumption Rises

April

A Moscow location of the Russian cafe chain “Shokoladnitsa”

The Russian Federation has become the seventh importing member of the International Coffee Organization, the ICO announced earlier this week.
Russia joins the European Union, the United States, Norway, Switzerland, Tunisia and Turkey as ICO members under the International Coffee Agreement, last formalized in 2007.
The 33-year-old ICO was created by the United Nations with the first International Coffee Agreement in 1962. While the group no longer oversees export quotas designed to stabilize the market, it is nonetheless a leading source for current and historic market data, and a leading body for intergovernmental collaboration, including its annual Consultative Forum on Coffee Sector Finance.
Including the Russian Federation, ICO member governments now represent 95 percent of world coffee production and 78 percent of world consumption.
“The Russian Federation has been an official Observer of the ICO’s meetings for several years and I have personally been engaged in talks with senior officials regarding its accession,” ICO Executive Director Robério Oliveira Silva said in a prepared announcement. “As one of the top coffee consuming countries in the world, we believe the Russian Federation is well positioned to work with ICO Members on the promotion of the coffee sector worldwide and to tackle the challenges we face.”
According to the ICO, the Russian Federation consumed 4 million bags in 2014, with an average per capita consumption rate of 1.7kilograms. Since 2000, coffee consumption in the country has doubled, while growing at an estimated 3 percent annually over the past four years.

Coffee, sugar price forecasts slashed up to 31 percent as Brazil real falls

(Reuters) - Banks including Goldman Sachs and Citi have slashed their forecasts for coffee and sugar prices by as much as 31 percent in the past month as the value of Brazil's real currency slumped to its lowest in 12 years.
With sugar prices now languishing near the lowest levels in more than six years below 13 cents per lb, six banks are now forecasting an average of second-quarter prices of around 13.6 cents per lb, down about three cents from earlier forecasts, according to data collected by Reuters. Rabobank's forecast was the most bearish at 12.5 cents.
In arabica coffee, the average estimate fell to $1.52 per lb from $1.90, the data show. Citi cut its second quarter forecast by 31 percent, the most of any bank surveyed, but still held the most bullish third-quarter forecast at $1.75 per lb.
A leading cause of the downward revision has been the tumbling real in Brazil, the world's biggest producer of both commodities. It fell nearly 30 percent against the dollar between late January and March 20, when it reached a 12-year low due to the greenback's strength and also growing political uncertainty stemming from a corruption scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras.
"A rising dollar generally reduces global demand for dollar-denominated commodities, while a weakening Brazilian real significantly encourages exports, boosting global inventories," wrote Societe Generale in an April 7 report.
Several banks also pointed to abundant global sugar supplies as a source of nearby price pressure.
The weak currency attracted heavy exporter and producer selling in Brazil.
"Brazilian real weakness continues to reduce domestic sugar production costs in U.S. dollar terms, pressuring the ICE No. 11 (sugar) and prompting a downward revision in our price forecast, while supply-side risks remain at bay," wrote Rabobank in its March report.
While the benchmark coffee contract price fell 24 percent from the end of 2014 to the lowest level in more than one year in dollars, making it the second-weakest performer on the 19-market Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity Index, it only fell 9 percent in reais. What was an 18 percent fall in sugar futures to the lowest in more than six years in the U.S. currency was a mere 1 percent drop in reais.

This Retail Price Index for High-End Roasted Coffee is Incredibly Interesting

April 16, 2015 4:20 pm

The Transparent Trade Coffee mark.

A team at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School has been putting together a retail price index for largely directly traded, single-origin roasted coffees in the United States and Canada. The index turns traditional price indicators on their heads by pitching roasted coffee retail prices, rather than green coffee prices, as a benchmark.
The work is part of the Social Enterprise @ Goizueta program, which explores how business acumen and market-based solutions can have the ability to “achieve meaningful and enduring societal impacts.” It also raises some seriously interesting questions about pricing yardsticks among many businesses who are buying and roasting at the industry’s upper echelons.
Before we get into the index itself, some explication of methodology may be in order.

Transparent Coffee Registry

SE@G has named the coffee-specific project Transparent Trade Coffee. The work being done under that name is on two main fronts. First is the Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (SCRPI), but the group is also keeping a registry of roasters who demonstrate, with documentation, FOB prices paid for specific coffees (to this point, only Farmers to 40, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters and Counter Culture Coffee are listed). That initiative follows these principles:

Coffee producers are primarily responsible for the excellent coffees that we drink. This is why more and more specialty coffee markets are recognizing and celebrating the many contributions of these producers. However, the current structure of global coffee markets is such that these producers have a hard time being adequately compensated for the work that they do on their farms and in their communities.

It is time to clearly and succinctly inform coffee consumers about the economic treatment of coffee producers. To accomplish this goal, Transparent Trade Coffee provides:

• A forum for direct trade roasters that are genuinely committed to transparency in their dealings with coffee producers, and;

• A simple communication vehicle so that consumers can — at the time of purchase — know how much of their coffee dollars are going back to producers.

As a caveat, the group acknowledges that FOB prices are only a small part of the economic sustainability story in specialty coffee, but it says that “a clear articulation of the effective share of retail prices that is going to producers” can be an effective “launching point.”

Specialty Coffee Retail Index

Now, back to the retail price index, which the group says was designed to track retail prices among “blue chip” roasters in North America. TheSE@G team is currently tracking the prices of bagged, whole bean coffee from 58 roasters (60 is the target number). Here’s more from SE@G on what kind of market segment the SCRPI is representing:

We focus on roasters whose coffees receive the lion’s share of attention from Coffee Review, and those who receive many of the Good Food Awards and Roast Magazine (Roaster of the Year) Awards. To capture both ends of the specialty coffee market, we visit the website of each Index roaster quarterly and record information about their lowest- and highest-priced coffees; ignoring the very high-priced Blue Mountain, Kona, Geisha/Esmeralda and Civet/Kopi Luwak coffees.

Coming from an academic center inside a business school, the resulting index is not necessarily designed as a resource for industry. SE@G is presenting it more as a foil to traditional price points and indicators, such as Fair Trade minimums and the International Coffee Organization composite indicator for commodity coffees. The group seems to be suggesting there is some value in simply juxtaposing these numbers. (For example, there may be some important questions raised in the minds of consumers when a bag of roasted coffee marked as “direct trade” sells for $22 per pound, while the ICO’s composite indicator for green coffee currently sits at $1.27 per pound.)
Of course, such a comparison is deeply convoluted, but “launching points” into the supply sustainability conversation are of benefit to all.

Numerous 2016 World Coffee Competition Events Heading to Shanghai, China

April 1, 2015 11:08 am

The 2014 WCE All-Stars Event in Shanghai. Photo by WCE.

Dublin-based World Coffee Events has announced that the World Coffee Roasting Championship, the World Cup Tasters Championship, the World Latte Art Championship and the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship will all take place in Shanghai, China, in 2016.
The competition events will be part of the Hotelex show, running from March 29 to April 1, 2016. For 2015, all those events are currently scheduled as par of the World of Coffee show in Gothenburg, Sweden. The 2015 World Barista Championship is taking place in conjunction with the SCAA Event in Seattle next week, while 2016 WBC and World Brewers Cup events will be at World of Coffee 2016 in Dublin.
The Hotelex show is a massive event, open to product and service providers throughout the hospitality food and drink sectors.
“WCE feels strongly that these events will prove a major success in China with the support of the local specialty coffee community,” World Coffee Events Managing Director Cindy Ludviksen said in an announcement released yesterday.

Μαλακά εμπορεύματα παρακολουθήσετε: ριμπάουντ στην τιμή της ζάχαρης από χαμηλότερα επίπεδα έξι ετών

Έχουν μαλακή μελλοντικής εκπλήρωσης εμπορευμάτων έχουν συναλλαγών μικτή μέχρι στιγμής στη σημερινή συνεδρίαση με ακατέργαστη ζάχαρη ανακάμπτοντας από μια νέα χαμηλότερα επίπεδα έξι ετών μετά σύρθηκε κάτω από κερδοσκοπικές συναλλαγές. Κακάο άλλαζε χέρια στο χαμηλότερο επίπεδο μέσα σε επτά εβδομάδες, ζυγίζονται από τις ευνοϊκές συνθήκες φύτευσης πριν από την έναρξη της Δυτικής Αφρικής μέσα καλλιέργειες.
ICE futures Πρώτες ζάχαρη για το διακανονισμό Μάιο αυξήθηκε 0,38 τοις εκατό σε 12,01 σεντς ανά λίμπρα στο χρηματιστήριο ICE, από 13:25 BST. Η σύμβαση έχει ανέκαμψε από το χαμηλό συνεδρία 11,91 σεντ χτύπησε στην προηγούμενη διαπραγμάτευση, ασθενέστερο επίπεδο από τον Ιανουάριο του 2009. Reuters ανέφερε μια έμπορος εμπορεύματα όπως λέγοντας:
"Είναι πώλησης κερδοσκόπος. Οι προδιαγραφές έχουν πήρε από την αγορά στο τρέξιμο». Κατά την άποψή του, οι τιμές ήταν πολύ χαμηλές για να προσελκύσουν προσφορές των ινδικών εξαγωγών ακατέργαστης ζάχαρης στην αγορά. Επιτέλους έλεγχο, το Μάιο λευκή ζάχαρη ήταν 0,05 τοις εκατό σε $ 357.700 ανά τόνο, όχι πολύ μακριά από τη σύμβαση χαμηλό των $ 357.300 έπληξε νωρίτερα σήμερα.
Συμβολαίων μελλοντικής εκπλήρωσης καφέ Arabica ανέβηκε, εδραιώνοντας μετά από τέσσερα τοις εκατό πτώση κατά τη διάρκεια της προηγούμενης συνόδου στο πίσω μέρος του ράλι του δολαρίου των ΗΠΑ. Συμβολαίων μελλοντικής εκπλήρωσης Arabica για παράδοση Μαΐου είχε κερδίσει 1,19 τοις εκατό σε 1,3375 δολάρια ανά λίβρα, πάνω από το 13 μηνών χαμηλό των 1,2875 δολαρίων ανά λίβρα που είχε επιτευχθεί νωρίτερα τον Μάρτιο. Μαΐου καφέ Robusta ήταν κάτω από $ 11 ή 0,64 τοις εκατό σε $ 1.711 ανά τόνο.
Κακάο για παράδοση Μαΐου υποχώρησε έως £ 6 σε £ 1,897.00 ανά τόνο στο Λονδίνο, ενώ το σημείο αναφοράς των ΗΠΑ ήταν 0,45 τοις εκατό σε $ 2,694.50. Εμπόρους Κακάο ισχυρίστηκε ότι οι ευνοϊκές καιρικές συνθήκες της Δυτικής Αφρικής αναπτυσσόμενες περιοχές οδηγούσαν σε ευοίωνες προβλέψεις για τα μέσα καλλιέργειες, βάρους στις τιμές.
Σε futures σιτηρών, των ΗΠΑ σιτάρι έπεσε από μια εβδομάδα υψηλό των 531,13 δολαρίων, έφτασε νωρίτερα σήμερα. Η σύμβαση έδωσε πίσω τα προηγούμενα κέρδη του και η υποστήριξη από ξηρασία και η άνοδος της θερμοκρασίας σε ορισμένα μέρη της ζώνης σιτηρών των ΗΠΑ, η οποία απείλησε να περιορίσει τις αποδόσεις των καλλιεργειών χειμώνα, αντισταθμίστηκε από τη δύναμη του δολαρίου των ΗΠΑ. Futures σιταριού για παράδοση το Μάιο σχετικά με την Chicago Board of Trade μειώθηκε 0,87 τοις εκατό σε 5,2538 δολάρια ανά μπούσελ. Το εμπόρευμα αναρριχήθηκε 4,4 τοις εκατό κατά τη διάρκεια της προηγούμενης συνόδου.
Εν τω μεταξύ, οι τιμές του αραβοσίτου μειώθηκαν κατά σχεδόν δύο σεντς, ή 0,48 τοις εκατό, σε $ 3.911 ανά μπούσελ. Το εμπόρευμα κινητοποιήθηκαν τρία σεντς χθες, αλλά παραμένει υπό πίεση μέσα σε μεγάλα αποθέματα και χαμηλή ζήτηση για φορτία των ΗΠΑ.
Τις τιμές της σόγιας έχουν άκρες προς τα κάτω στο εμπόριο κοντά στα χαμηλότερα επίπεδα τους από τις 20 Μαρτίου, πιέζονται από την προοπτική υψηλότερων φύτευση στις ΗΠΑ. Μάιος σόγια είχε χάσει 0,37 τοις εκατό σε $ 9.633 ανά μπούσελ από 13:44 BST. Τα γεωργικά εμπορεύματα έμποροι περιμένουν την απελευθέρωση της έκθεσης υποψήφιους φυτεύσεων από το Υπουργείο Γεωργίας των ΗΠΑ, που οφείλεται στις 17:00 BST, για περαιτέρω ενδείξεις σχετικά με τις κινήσεις της αγοράς.

Inside Roast Magazine: Roast Profile Development, Kenyan Quality and Flavor Communication

The March/April 2015 issue of Roast Magazine is now shipping. If you’re not yet a Roast subscriber, become one here.
Below are previews of three of this issue’s feature stories, including a roast development study by Coffee Analysts, an exploration of Kenyan quality factors by Matt Daks, and a piece by Chris Ryan on how the communication of flavor is transforming the supply chain.
Read. Learn. Enjoy. Subscribe.

A STUDY IN ROAST LEVELS

Comparing and Contrasting Two Coffees Roasted to Five Different Levels

Story and Photos by Coffee Analysts’ Staff

Roast profile development is both an art and a science. Determining what is best for each coffee is a difficult challenge — best blend, best roast level, best brewing method, and so on. Knowing what attributes you prefer is easy; however, when developing products to sell, predicting what customers will like is more difficult. While marketing managers and consumer insight professionals have protocols for determining consumer preferences and purchase intent, coffee roasters and product developers must conduct their own technical analysis when developing new products and optimizing existing ones.
The first step is to identify success criteria: What is good, what is not good, how will the coffee be evaluated, and, perhaps most importantly, to what will the coffee be compared? Product development has two important functions: creating a product that meets the quality and profile expectations of the company, and developing a product that will be purchased and enjoyed by consumers. Ultimately, the true measure of any coffee program is beverage quality—how does it taste? Branding, promotion and merchandising will capture the first sale, but only consistent quality will keep your customers returning time after time.

TO MARKET, TO MARKET

How the Kenyan Coffee Marketing System Supports Exceptional Coffee

Story and photos by Matt Daks

Poll your closest coffee-buyer friends. Odds are, a majority will tell you their favorite place to buy green coffee, or their favorite origin to drink, is Kenya. There are several critical control points that enable Kenyan coffees to hold such a revered place in the hearts, minds and stocks of the professional coffee community.
The most obvious of these critical controls lies in the land itself. Sitting directly on the equator, Kenya enjoys ideal seasonality for coffee growing, with well-defined rainy and dry periods. Much of the nation’s coffee production is centered on the stratovolcano Mount Kenya, whose soils are rich loams primed for drainage and nutrient uptake. Small-holder plantations reach 1,800 meters above sea level and higher. This remarkable altitude provides ideal climatic conditions. Cool, clear mornings are met with the strength of the equatorial sun, which quickly raises temperatures and helps create cloud cover just above the coffee regions. As temperatures rise, cloud cover helps protect the coffee from the intensity of direct sunlight. By evening, the cloud cover is whisked away and temperatures drop quickly, slowing the maturation of fruit on the tree. The sun rises each day at 6:15 a.m. and begins to set at 6:30 p.m.

DO YOU TASTE WHAT I TASTE?

Improved Communication Around Flavor Is Transforming the Supply Chain

by Chris Ryan

David Roche remembers one of the first moments he noticed the landscape shifting. The year was 2006, and the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) had been administering its Q Grader certification courses in Colombia’s Cauca department. Coffee farmers from a cooperative in Popayán had gotten wind of the courses and had begun dropping in to sample specialty-caliber coffee — a far cry from what they normally consumed.
“Like many coffee farmers, they would drink their lower-grade coffee and dump sugar in it,” says Roche, who is now CQI’s executive director. The learning process had started to pay off, and farmers were identifying the attributes present in specialty coffee. On that particular visit, one of the farmers said to Roche, “I don’t put sugar in my coffee because my coffee is already sweet.”
To Roche, it was an epiphany.

Colombia coffee growers demand financial help as prices slide

By Peter Murphy

BOGOTA, March 31 (Reuters) – Colombia’s coffee growers are requesting government cash to help cover rising costs after a recent sharp fall in the price of arabica beans, a growers’ representative said on Monday, as discontent resurfaces across Colombia’s farm sector.

The Dignidad Cafetera movement, which led protests by coffee growers in 2013, wants the government to pay out 850 billion pesos ($327 million) of subsidies not disbursed last year after arabica prices shot above an agreed subsidy cut-off rate.

Coffee growers met with two congressmen on Monday to discuss their financial difficulties after a 17 percent slide in arabica prices and to demand left-over subsidy cash be channeled into a fund that would top up farmer incomes when prices fall low enough.

“We are demanding that these 850 billion pesos are returned to create a stabilization fund to compensate for production costs,” said Alonso Suarez, Dignidad Cafetera spokesman for Antioquia, one of Colombia’s biggest coffee regions.

Suarez said the movement would also seek a meeting with Agriculture Minister Aurelio Iragorri to discuss their demands and said a repeat of protests in 2013, in which farmers blocked roads and refused to sell beans, was a “last option.”

Colombia is the world’s top producer of mild, washed arabicas.

The government is unlikely to be as receptive to requests for funds as it was two years ago. Its coffers have been shrunken by last year’s plunge in oil prices last year that prompted a hasty tax reform to ensure it could still pay bills.

The dip in international prices for coffee has been offset by a weaker peso, which has lost more than a fifth of its value versus the dollar in a year and hit its weakest level since 2006 on Monday. But that also raises the cost of imports like fertilizer.

The farmer-funded National Coffee Growers’ Federation was not involved in Monday’s meeting, which included representatives from other agriculture sectors including cocoa, rice and plantain, who are also seeking government intervention.

Arabica prices have plunged after fears subsided that world top coffee grower Brazil would face a shrunken, weather-hit crop for a second year in a row after rains recently ended a harsh dry spell and due to the weakening of the Brazilian currency.

Roasting Lupine as Coffee Substitute: An Informal How-To

March 31, 2015 3:49 pm

The seed inside the hard shell of a roasted lupine bean. Photo by Frans Goddijn.

As part of a test project for HKU University of the Arts in The Netherlands involving potential food uses for sweet lupine beans, two young food and product designers recently visited Roast Magazine friend and obsessive tinkerer Frans Goddijn.
The plan: roast, grind and brew some sweet lupine beans and see what happens. The experiment was part of the LupinFood project, led by Johanna Lundberg of Sweden and Lydeke Bosch of The Netherlands.

Unroasted sweet lupine beans. Photo courtesy of LupinFood.eu

Inside Goddijn’s workshop, the sweet, edible lupine beans — not to be confused with other varieties of lupine beans that can present a threat of alkaloid poisoning when consumed — were roasted an a Fracino Roastilino roaster. While not common, roasting lupine is certainly not unprecedented, and Goddijn was able to find some basic information about roast temperatures as a starting point.
The roast the yielded the best results, says Goddijn, is presented here, through open-source software Artisan:

Once the lupine beans were roasted, the inner seeds bore a remarkable resemblance to coffee in shape and color.
From there, Goddijn learned a lesson the hard way: lupine seeds and conical burr grinders do not mix.  “I now understand better why some grinder manufacturers explicitly state that their grinder should only be used to grind roasted coffee beans,” says Goddijn, who had to buy replacement burrs after his grinder began producing inconsistent results following the experiment.
Back at HKU, Lundberg and Bosch led a tasting with fellow graduate students, and Goddijn shares with us the following results:

The light roast smelled and tasted like peanut butter but the darkest roast was found sweet and pleasant. The Aeropress was the most convenient method.

While the results seem promising, we’re still a ways off from launching Daily Lupine News.
For more on Goddijn’s coffee-focused experimentation, follow his Kostverlorenvaart blog.