STiR coffee and tea magazine

20 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 2, 2019 (April / May) Ethisphere, which defines and advances standards for ethical business practices selected 128 companies from 21 countries and 50 industries. The institute assesses a company's performance based on core competen- cies including ethics and compliance, a culture of ethics, corporate citizenship and responsibility, governance, and leadership and reputation. "Ethics are essential to the long-term sustainability of any organization, which is not built overnight, but as a core value that is aligned with measurable commit- ments and actions," said Andrea Illy, company chairman. JAPAN Starbucks Opens Tokyo Roastery Starbucks recently opened the fifth in its series of high-end roasteries, this one in Tokyo. The four-story facility in Tokyo's Nakameguro neighborhood features glass walls, terraced floors, and the bean-to-cup demonstration that has become the centerpiece of each Reserve Roastery. Plans call for the facility to be Starbucks' first Specialty Coffee Association-certified training location in Japan. "As the first international market outside of North America, Starbucks Japan has contributed 23 years of innovation for our company globally," Kevin Johnson, Starbucks c.e.o., said in a statement. "The opening of the Tokyo roastery will further amplify what Starbucks Japan has done across all stores in the market for more than two decades." Japan's vibrant coffee market imports $1.4 billion in coffee annually. RWANDA Export Revenues Up Rwanda's coffee export revenues are increasing, according to government reports. Revenues were up more than $69 million in 2018, a $5 million increase over the previous year, The National Agricultural Exports Board reported in February. The improvement was credited to increased specialty coffee production and sales. "We have seen an increase in coffee export revenues year by year and this is all attributed to our government's efforts to raise the quality of coffee exports, whereby about 60% of the coffees that we export are specialty coffees," exports board c.e.o. Bill Kayonga said. The country's specialty coffee production grew from nearly nothing in 2000 to 58% of the total national coffee output in 2017. Officials expect that to grow to 80% by 2020, according to a report by the Chinese News Agency Xinhuanet. UK Roaster Expands North Viennese coffee roaster Julius Meinl is expanding its position in the United Kingdom with the acquisition of coffee distributor Aroma & Gusto. The move gives the Austrian premium coffee company a strategic foothold in the UK thanks to Aroma & Gusto's existing customer base in the Midlands region. Julius Meinl already is in London. "We've long considered it a logical step to expand northwards into the Midlands and this deal has provided us with the means to do so," said Jérôme Pastre, the company's managing director of international business. "By acquiring Aroma & Gusto, we've developed new contacts in the form of their strong HoReCa customer base. Now we can provide customers in the Midlands and beyond with a greater portfolio of offerings, from coffee and tea to full trade packages, including new product innovations, coffee machines and equipment, and point of sale materials." With this expansion, Julius Meinl now will look to Scotland and South West England. Julius Meinl has 50,000 hotel, restaurant and café customers interna- tionally with sales reaching more than $200 million last year. US Kona Farmers Allege Fake Coffee Three Hawaiian coffee farmers claim the market is flooded with fake Kona coffee and they are going to court to stop it. The three farmers, all based on the big island of Hawaii, allege in a class- action lawsuit that some of the world's largest retailers and their coffee suppliers are flooding the market with coffee falsely labeled as Kona coffee. The lawsuit, filed in late February, is intended to benefit 600-1,000 Kona coffee growers on the island, according to a West Hawaii Today report. Named as defendants are Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Safeway, Kroger, ABC Stores, Cost Plus/World Market, Bed Bath & Beyond, Albertsons, and others. Also named were three Hawaii-based coffee producers – Hawaiian Isles Kona Coffee, Mulvadi Corp., and Maui Coffee Co. Mainland coffee producers named include Boyer's Coffee Co. (Colo.), Magnum Coffee Roastery (Mich.), Copper Moon Coffee (Ind.), Gold Coffee Roasters (Fla.), and Cameron's Coffee and Distribution Co. (Minn.). The farmers have long believed the Kona market was saturated with wrongly labeled coffee. Kona farmers produce 2.7 million pounds of green beans a year, the lawsuit alleges, but more than 20 million pounds of coffee labeled as Kona are sold at retail. To prove their case, the farmers turned to scientific testing. "The problem has always been determining what was Andrea Illy Starbucks' new roastery in Tokyo

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