Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/55324
British specialty coff ee going strong Grew 10 percent in 2011, survey says Retail specialty coffee sales in Great Britain grew 10 percent in 2011, outperforming the foodservice segment in general and defying the bad economy, according to a study by consumer research firm Allegra Strategies. British specialty coffee retail sales for 2011 were estimated at £2.1 billion (US$3.3 billion), a 10 percent increase and a doubling of the market since 2005. More than 600 new coffee shops were opened in the UK in 2011. Costa Coffee, the leading British specialty coffee chain, established 167 new shops in 2011, bringing its total to 1,342. Starbucks opened 12 new stores in Britain and now has 743. The Allegra poll also showed that one in 10 adults in the UK visit a coffee shop every day, and 39 percent said their visits are more frequent now than they were 12 months ago. On the downside, the poll showed that, while 69 percent of coffeehouse customers buy food there too, Mark Your Calendar February 9-11 Coffee Fest New York, Javits Center, New York City, www.coffeefest.com 18-19 Cafe Biz 2012, Australian Technology Park, Sydney, Australia, www.cafeculture.com/cafe-biz-info 22-24 National Coffee Assn. Annual Convention, Charleston (S.C.) Place Hotel, www.ncausa.org 23-25 Tea & Coffee World Cup, Vienna, Austria, www.tcworldcup.com 28-29 UK Coffee Leader Summit, Millbank Tower, London, England, www.ukcoffeeleadersummit.com 18-19 Specialty Coffee Assn. of America Annual Exposition and Symposium, Portland (Ore.) Convention Center, www.scaa.org 27-29 London Coffee Festival, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London, England, www.londoncoffeefestival.com May 4-6 Melbourne Int'l Coffee Expo, Melbourne, Australia, www.internationalcoffeexpo.com 6 | February 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com April March the average ticket is down slightly, from £3.50 ($5.49) in 2009 to £3.18 ($4.98) in 2011. The study gave reasons for long-term optimism, predicting a compound annual growth rate of 10.7 percent through 2015, with total sales reaching £3.2 billion ($5 billion) by then. The Allegra study was based on a survey of 36,000 British consumers. Analysts: Coff ee prices will stay high, not spike $3 barrier should remain unbroken Prices for Arabica coffee beans, the variety used in specialty coffee, should remain firm in 2012 but not reach the record highs they saw in 2011, according to market analysts. An opinion by Commerzbank quoted in Agrimoney.com predicts that Arabica prices should hold above $2 a pound but not break the $3 barrier as they did in mid-2011. The general consensus is that supply and demand for coffee in general, especially Arabica, will align more closely than they have in previous years. Positive factors for supply include better-than-expected crops in Brazil, which accounts for about half of Arabica exports, and Vietnam. Negative factors include crop-suppressing weather in Colombia and Central America. The continuing bad economic situation in the developed world is not expected to depress demand for Arabica, while increasing coffee consumption in producer nations will prop up demand. Green Mountain garbage turned into biogas Experiment uses grounds and packaging Waste from a Green Mountain Coffee Roasters roasting/packaging plant is being turned into fuel gas in an experiment by the University of North Dakota and a private bioenergy firm. The waste comprises coffee grounds, 25-26 Coffee & Tea Festival, 7WEST, New York, N.Y., www.coffeeandteafestival.com burlap sacks, and paper and plastic packaging, including the single-serve plastic K-Cups that constitute much of Green Mountain's sales. Researchers from the University of North Dakota's Energy & Environmental Research Center and from bioenergy firm Wynntryst LLC are converting Green Mountain's waste into synthetic gas. Depending on its quality, possibilities for the gas include use in an internal-combustion engine, in a fuel cell for production of heat and/or electricity, or as feedstock for biofuels and chemicals. If successful, the experiment has the potential to at least partially disarm criticism of Green Mountain on environmental grounds. One of the biggest consumer negatives of the K-Cup is the effect on the environment of the discarded plastic pods, which are estimated to number more than 3 billion a year. The biogas project is the latest in a series of eco-friendly initiatives that Green Mountain has undertaken, including the development of a "green" paper coffee cup in 2006 and the installation in 2010 of a large solar panel array on the roof of its distribution center in Vermont. Starbucks raises drink prices in some regions 1% increase partly because of coffee contracts Starbucks has announced higher prices for certain drinks in the Northeast, South and Southwest regions, averaging about 1 percent. The increases, announced