STiR coffee and tea magazine

54 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 2, 2017 (April/May) It was there he met Grover and her team. "They were clearly knowledgeable and supplied us with all the informa- tion required to make an informed decision about entering the US market," he said. At the end of the day I felt a charged feeling that I was armed with the full facts about entering the US market but also with the appreciation that it was not going to be easy in the slightest. "After the workshops, FIAL organized a US market insight tour in Janu- ary 2017 for those of us who were interested," he said. The destination was San Francisco and the Specialty Food Association's Winter Fancy Food Show. "In the interim I started to trawl through some of the contacts that I had already made and followed up with an email to the buyer at TJX group. By chance, TJX had just appointed a food sourcing specialist here in Australia and my email was for- warded on to her," he said. "We modernized our packaging in August to create a more vibrant, colorful look so new sam- ples were sent," said Condon. "Ironically, after signing up for the trip we re- ceived our first order from TJX which was packed and being shipped whilst I was in the US," he said. The five-day trip included store visits, presen- tations by brokers, distributors, logistics special- ists, and packaging experts in advance of the event. "Fancy Food was way bigger than any show we have in Australia and features so many great products," said Condon. The event drew 33,000 attendees and a record 1,400 exhibitors. Grover had arranged meetings with relevant distributors, there were flash meetings on stairs between escala- tors, opposite the shoe shiners, he said. "She saw to it that we met all the people we would have never met had we just been wandering the show on our own," said Condon. "The five days were a roller coaster of emo- tions," he recalls. "One moment you felt that en- tering the US market was going to be way too hard and expensive. Next moment you would feel that we can do this, and so on. At the end of the day we came away armed with great knowledge, great contacts, and our eyes well and truly opened to what it takes to enter the US market. We were cer- tainly under no illusions that it will be easy." During impromptu presentations Condon shared the good news of his first order. "I felt that having our teas in the US would at least give us some exposure," he said. "One distributor told me they would not look at the teas due to us being in home goods stores. Another said 'fantastic,' as her clients would not look at products unless they were already being sold in the US." On his return to Queensland Condon immedi- ately began following up on new leads. "I am still liaising with great contacts that I made whilst on the trip and I am hopeful of some more interesting outcomes," one of which is placement in grocery, he said. "We are still aiming at the health food stores," he said. Specialty grocery Specialty grocery is a tempting target. Food sales in this retail segment, often referred to as "fancy food" were $120.5 billion in 2015, up 21.2% per- cent since 2013. This total represents 14% of all US retail food sales. One of the fastest growing categories in these stores is tea and coffee. "Specialty food sales are exploding right now," says Phil Kafarakis, president of the Specialty Food Association, which owns and produces the Winter Fancy Food Show. "We're seeing Millen- Janis H. Grover, left, speaks with FIAL's Najib Lawand, center, and Brian Carnahan, with the Victoria government's business office in San Francico Go With the Flow North America is the world's most lucrative market for tea. Persistence Market Research (PMR) forecasts the global market for tea will surpass $21 billion by 2024, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 5%. Rahul Singh, manager of Digital Marketing at the New York City firm, esti- mated the global tea market totaled $14.45 billion by the end of 2016, up from $13.85 billion in 2015. "North America is expected to account for a relatively higher value share of the market in 2016 followed by Europe and Asia Pacific (APAC) respectively," he wrote. "The region is expected to continue its dominance, gaining 210 BPS (basis points) reaching an estimated 37% share of the market in revenues during the forecast period." At the global level, black tea production increased annually by 2.6% dur- ing the period 2005–2014 and green tea by 6.4%, in response to continued firm prices," according to the FAO IGG (Food and Agriculture Organization's Intergovernmental Group of Tea). Consumption patterns are changing as high-value (packaged and blend- ed) teas find consumer acceptance in producting countries where low-value tea remains the predominate choice. Production doubled during the past 20 years to 5,305 million metric tons in 2015. Exports have increase annually by 1.6% in the decade ending 2014 reach 1.73 million metric tons in 2014. In 2015 1,802 million metric tons of tea was exported. Tea has a steady wind at its back, sails full with lots of room to maneuver.

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