COFFEE NEWS

Indonesia has the second largest area of coffee plantations in the world but due to low yields it only ends up as the fifth largest producer after Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, and India, a researcher said.

Surip Mawardi, a researcher from the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI), said last week that Indonesia’s coffee plantation area totaled 1.3 million hectares but its production was still less than 700 kilograms per hectare per year.

“It’s very low compared to Vietnam’s annual production of 1,540 kilograms per hectare, Colombia’s 1,220 kilograms, and Brazil’s 1,000 kilograms.

“That’s why Vietnam is up from fifth largest producer to second largest, while Indonesia is down to fifth from third largest producer in the world,” he said.

Surip was speaking to the press after addressing a seminar on Indonesian coffee development, which was organized by PT. Nestle Indonesia, the subsidiary of Nestle S.A. the world’s leading producer of food and beverages.

Latest Agriculture Ministry data shows that Brazil, with a total area under coffee plantations of 2.37 million hectares has a total production of 2.02 million tons per year, Colombia with 560,000 hectares produces 744,000 tons per year, Vietnam with 491,800 hectares produces 1.05 million tons per year, while India with 328,000 hectares has an annual production of 507,000 tons.

“It’s because these countries adopted best farming practices with advanced agricultural technology. But we in Indonesia are yet to apply such technology to all of our coffee farmers.

“Most of our farmers are not yet aware of the importance of having good seedlings for their plantations,” he noted.

To address the problem, Achmad Manggabarani, the ministry’s director general of plantations, said in the same seminar that the government was pursuing efforts to promote the use of so-called Somatic Embryogenesis (SE) techniques among Indonesian coffee farmers and urged them to use plantlets and seedlings developed this way.

He said that the application of the SE technique had been pursued in cooperation with ICCRI, a state-owned agricultural research institute under the ministry of agriculture, and Nestle Indonesia — the largest buyers of coffee beans in Indonesia, with total annual purchases of about 70,000 tons of coffee per year, mostly from plantations in Sumatra.

Nestle claims to be the first corporation in the world using SE techniques in coffee plantations.
The Nestle research and development center in Tours in France, has conducted a mapping of Indonesia’s coffee trees and had identified 33 elite types, of which six of the best are being evaluated.

The chosen elite plantlets, which will be used to produce coffee seedlings, will be multiplied using SE technique that can produce up to 22 million plantlets per year.

The SE project is expected improve the coffee farmers’ competitive advantage in the international market by helping them to grow the best strains of coffee plantlets.

“This year we’ve targeted that our farmers in Sumatra and Java will grow about one million of such seedlings.

“Until now we’ve managed to secure the planting of 500,000 seedlings. Next year we target the planting of four million seedlings, and then in 2011 six million seedlings,” Achmad said.

With every hectare being able to accommodate 1,300 seedlings, the area that had been planted with the new seedlings has now reached about 385 hectares.

He said that the government was serious in developing coffee plantations as coffee was one of the top commodities in the country.

Employing 2.3 million people across the archipelago, the coffee plantation sector contribution to foreign exchange has been increasing during the last four years from US$504.4 million in 2005, to $588.50 million in 2006, to $636.42 millions or 11.66 percent of total agricultural exports in 2007, to $991.46 million or 24 percent of total agricultural exports in 2008.

“The SE technique has been also successfully applied to our cocoa plantations. Such techniques can increase the coffee yield by more than 100 percent from the current yield of less than 700 kilograms per hectare per year.

“By applying this, we hope we can double our coffee production and income in the next five years,” he said.

This year we’ve targeted that our farmers in Sumatra and Java will grow about one million of such seedlings.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/07/06/ri-moves-raise-coffee-output.html

Source: http://news.balita.ph

A LORRY-LOAD of potentially toxic counterfeit coffee was seized by trading standards officers.

The haul, worth more than £34,000, was bound for Merseyside canteens, shops and restaurants.

A police and city council team swooped as it headed for a warehouse in Kensington yesterday.

After the seizure the supplier was arrested and the large, catering-size Nestlé containers examined.

They turned out to be fake.

The 750 gram tins were labelled “Nescafe Original Granules”.

The fakes can be identified from the label which reads: “Nestlé Consumer Services, PO Box 207, York YO91 1XY”.

Underneath the English instructions for use is Russian writing.

Liverpool council’s executive member for the environment Cllr Berni Turner said: “I never cease to be amazed at the lengths to which people will go to sell fake goods.

“This coffee looks just like the real thing, but consumers just don’t know what’s in the tin.

“One thing is for sure, if you pay for Nescafé coffee that is what you should get.”

Inquiries are ongoing to determine where the coffee came from.

The contents will be analysed to find out exactly what is in the coffee.

Counterfeiters are turning their attention to fake food after crackdowns on cigarettes, perfumes and clothes across the UK.

Fake tea bags, cola, baby food, alcohol and even milk powder have been seized.

This summer health officials warned shoppers in Merseyside to look out for a dangerous vodka which could cause blindness after high levels of methanol were found in counterfeit bottles of Spar’s own-brand vodka.

Trading Standards want to hear from anyone who believes they have any of the counterfeit coffee. Call Liverpool Direct on 0151-233 3000.

Source: http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=toxic-haul-of-fake-coffee-seized-in-liverpool&method=full&objectid=22000324&siteid=50061-name_page.html

While everyone has heard of Chinese tea, Chinese Coffee somehow just sounds wrong; unless it is an Al Pacino movie. And while China is famous for tea, they are becoming known in the coffee world too, both in the retail coffee shop world, and the wholesale green coffee arena. Coffee was actually brought to China in the late 1800’s by Jesuits. In the 1930’s, there was a coffee boom, when places like Shanghai were popular destination spots with the so called Western Adventurer. At that time though, many of the cafes were run by Westerners. There was a bust for a few decades afterwards, but there is another boom on the rise which really started as far back as the late 1980’s. And this time, many of the coffee serving establishments are owned or run by Chinese, and there are now plantations that produce green coffee for domestic and export, and that continue to grow in area and output every year.

Coffee drinking in China is still associated with the West, and is seen as more of a fashion statement, and a luxury, than something you prepare at home on your way to work. But consumption in general is on the rise, and the numbers do bear this out. It should be noted however, that much of the coffee consumption in China is currently in the form of instant coffee. Since coffee is still fairly new, the Chinese are going to need time to appreciate freshly roasted coffee. And since instant coffee is relatively cheap and easy to find, those are just more reasons for it’s popularity. And don’t forget that tea is very cheap, is the national drink, and has been around for thousands of years; so coffee has a lot of competition in China.

Starbucks in China

With regards to retail coffee, Starbucks had over 100 outlets in China in 2004, but now has over 400 locations, so the trend toward freshly roasted and brewed coffee is expected to continue it’s upward rise, even if instant coffee is still relegated to be prepared at home, complete with it’s 3-in-1 mix of freeze dried coffee, sugar, and cream. But even Starbucks needs to worry, as local competition (and outright copycats), have sprung up as direct competition. In fact one local Chinese coffee chain used Chinese characters which were almost the same as Starbucks. Starbucks sued. Sounds like coffee has many good years of growth ahead of it in China.

In 1988, the Chinese government and the United Nations Development Program started a project to produce coffee in the Yunnan province. Along with Nestle, the coffee growing area grew and grew. The Yunnan province has a climate and condition similar to that of Indonesia and parts of South America, so in theory the quality coming out of this area should be quite high. But they have had to fight things like quality control, and the “Dry Leaf” coffee virus. The efforts seemed to have worked, as coffee coming out of the premier Simao region is quite good considering how little time it has been. And it should get better as time goes on, as the government is now behind the effort, and the Ruili, Baoshan, and Kunming regions are also producing Arabica coffee beans. On a side note, unlike much of the Vietnamese Robusta coffee, a large amount of Arabica coffee comes out of China. They do grow Robusta, but mainly on Hainan island and in the Fujian province, but it only represents about 20 percent of the total grown in the country.

So what do the numbers look like? Total volume of coffee sales grew in China upwards of 90% from 1997 to 2003, and the numbers have continued a similar rise to the present. Low green coffee prices around the world, resulted in lower retail coffee prices in China. This raised awareness about coffee, and in turn caused more investment interest in both local green coffee growing operations, as well as retail coffee shops and internet cafes. Couple that with admiration for anything considered Western (and therefore hip), and you can see why coffee is taking off.

Could China of the future be the next Colombia of the 1970’s? A Chinese version of Juan Valdez? Who knows. But the fact that even small-time home roasters are getting their hands on green Chinese coffee (and enjoying it), tells us that China is capable of producing a decent clean tasting Arabica coffee bean, and the volume is there. If they keep it up, in a few years we may see Chinese coffee viewed in the same light as the likes of Kona Coffee, Jamaican Blue Mountain, and maybe even Kopi Luwak.

Source: http://ineedcoffee.com/08/chinese-coffee/

Dehong Hougu Coffee Ltd, which called itself China’s biggest coffee grower, seeks to raise 3 billion yuan ($437 million) selling shares publicly for expansion.

“China has a huge potential for coffee business,” Vice President Deng Gang said by telephone. The company is restructuring itself and has hired accountants and lawyers for the planned listing, he said.

China’s nascent, but fast-expanding coffee market is dominated by foreign companies, including Nestle, Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and Coffee Bean and Tea Leaves. Coffee consumption in China, though small, is growing 20 percent a year, Starbucks has said.

Hougu, which is based in southwestern Yunnan province and mainly grows coffee for exports, needs funding to expand its own processing and retail businesses.

It is already selling its own Hougu-branded coffee in Yunnan through retail outlets as well as its own coffee shops, and has plans to expand sales outside its home base. Hougu means “back valley” in English.

“We’re transforming from a coffee grower to a branded coffee maker and seller,” Deng said. “Nestle is still our client and we’re still too small to compete with it.”

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUKPEK30059320080701

Beijing Perfect World Co., Ltd. announced today the signing of a strategic agreement with Nestle, producers of the renowned ‘Nescafe’ brand. Keen online gamers this summer will see attentions absorbed by ”Zhuxian Online,” the fantastic game produced by Beijing Perfect World, and now, as part of this new agreement with Nestle, players will also benefit from deliciously tasty coffee. The agreement, signed in July 2007, will see a co-operation between Beijing Perfect World and Nestle’s premier brand, Nescafe.

As the ”favorite brand of domestic students”, Nescafe applies itself to the continued improvement of coffee products. Nestle has kept the top spot in coffee production in China for the last couple of years, and in January 2007, with the upgrade of their fresh new Nestle website, the majority of young consumers have been absorbed by the modern and wonderful items available.

”Zhuxian Online” has occupied the whole world so far in 2007. As one of the biggest developers and publishers in the field of domestic online-games, Beijing Perfect World, developer and publisher of ”Zhuxian Online”, has kept its high-improvement momentum since their establishment in 2004. Its products of different levels receive high praise from both domestic and overseas markets.

”Zhuxian Online,” the main product in first half of 2007, not only initiated several world-new systems, but they have also created the new game- style featuring in jump-puzzle-solutions. Also, Perfect World has carried out the novel-online game model. International celebrity, Richie Ren, has also already signed up to be the star representative of ”Zhuxian Online”, with Perfect World investing a large sum of money into the shooting of the fantasy film MU and the composition of the theme music,
maximizing the entertainment value.

The two companies have seen big success through the original 3D online games. The young game fans will have the opportunity to be awarded with superior VIP equipments for free in order to better experience the wonderful ”Zhuxian Online” while enjoying the rich taste of Nescafe. It is believed that the work between Perfect World and Nestle will not only contribute to the fastening of relations, but also the trend to promote games from Beijing Perfect World and products from Nestle, drawing even
greater attention from online gamers.

Source:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/advertising/nestle–beijing-perfect-world-enter-partnership-288505.php