Industry Trends and Impact Factors, Kona Gold
Coffees
Traditionally, the coffee roasting industry has been insensitive to economic
swings in the US. However when South American economies have been in
trouble, the supply of coffee from those countries decrease and prices go up.
Additionally, while the growers of coffee are subjected to many seasonal,
climatic, and agriculture impacts, these affect the roasting industry only when
supply is low or price is high. Strikes and labor disputes between growers and
pickers or between growers and transportation, shipping, and other distribution
channels can all affect supply and pricing. For the coffee roasting industry, these
impacts have not caused a significant in sales by customers. Over the last 50
years, the industry’s growth has increased more than GDP has.
The most exciting change in the industry has been the trend toward gourmet
coffee, starting in Seattle in the US, popular before that in Italy. This has more
dramatically affected the retail coffee industry in the form of millennium-style
coffee bars. As one article from Northwest Imports notes, this “trend and started
in Seattle with a mild craving for a good cup of joe (has) filtered down the coast
to California [and] is now sweeping eastward like a western prairie fire fueled by
fields of fresh roasted espresso beans.” Another source, Glamour magazine,
states that coffee bars are “in place to meet people.”
Moreover, this trend is international. In 1998, the SCAA reported that coffee
outsold tea in England for the first time in this century. Comparing this saturation
level with that of the US, one can see that we have along way to go: 285 million
people supported currently by only 15,000 specialty coffee operations.