Union Minister of State for Commerce Shri Jairam Ramesh, has urged for intense domestic coffee promotion efforts to make coffee a 'dhaba' drink like Tea. Speaking at a function after unveiling the Mascot for Coffees of India - " Coffee Swami" and the Launch of IICF 2007 organized by the Coffee Board in Bangalore on 14th September 2006, the Minister lamented that even a decade after total liberalization of coffee marketing in India, the consumption of coffee remains stagnant.
The present quantity of 80,000 MT of coffee being consumed annually in the country should have been doubled by now. The Minister felt that the existing perception of coffee being considered as an affluent drink should change and admitted that the biggest challenge is marketing coffee in India. He therefore called upon the Indian Coffee Industry to focus more aggressively on the domestic market even as rising competition eats into India's market share in key consuming nations like Germany, Russia and Belgium. Even though Indian coffee continues to hold on in Italy, it is facing severe competition there too.
While India accounts for 4% of the global coffee production, about 72% of its output is exported. The Union Minister said that besides competition from other growing nations, geographical proximity to major consuming nations was another reason why India was losing out. Brazil and Columbia are more closer to the US than India, he noted.
"We should be looking to doubling coffee consumption over the next 10 years from the current level of 80,000 tones. The bulk of the consumption in India happens in the southern states. There is a need to take coffee national and make it cross the Vindhyas and enter the Gangetic plains," he added.
The Minister said that while cafe culture had helped to boost coffee consumption in India, Tea is identified as being for the masses while coffee for -the well-off, he noted.
Noting that the dynamics of Indian export trade had undergone a change, the minister said: "Twenty years ago, it was necessary that coffee brought in huge export earnings, though today it's share in our basket is less than 0.5%. We still need the coffee sector from the employment perspective as six lakh people derive their livelihood from this sector," he said.
coffee consumers. This is particularly relevant to India with its booming economy and rising disposable incomes of fairly large sections of the society. In fact, after two decades of stagnation in domestic coffee consumption at around 50,000 tonnes (1980 to 2000), there has been a surge in coffee consumption in the country which is now placed around 80,000 tonnes thanks to the efforts of some of the enterprising coffee retail chains in the recent years that were quick to see the opportunity. Even then, per capita coffee consumption of 80 grams is abysmally low compared to the average per capita coffee consumption of over 4 kilograms of any developed country. Hence there is immense scope and potential to largely expand the Indian domestic coffee market.
Our washed and unwashed Robusta, Specialty coffees and estate brands they are all highly preferred and well recognized in the major coffee consuming countries. However Indian coffees have been largely used as fillers in the blends with various other origins.
Whereas we have large varieties of coffees and many of them are of top quality coffees. As a single origin we are uniquely positioned to develop exclusive Indian Coffee blends of international standards and develop sustainable, robust and vibrant coffee economy. Potential for employment generation in the coffee retail sector will be the biggest advantage we should keep in mind.
In this background, we decided to create a Mascot to represent Coffees of India with their unique flavors and appropriately position and popularize our specialty and special coffees, differentiated and value added coffees both internally and internationally.
Within the country coffee consumption is largely confined to the South Indian states. Most people haven't seen and known how a coffee bean looks. Therefore to introduce and popularize coffee in non-traditional parts of the country we have created a character - a Mascot who h tremendous capacity to touch the hearts and minds people in the months and years to come and become household name for Indian Coffees of India.
The Mascot represents the history of Coffees of Indi represents the unity in diversity, tradition and anciel wisdom and yet modem in outlook. Our Mascot carril unmistakable Indian identity wherever it goes.
The India International Coffee Festival - 2007 planned for 23-25th February 2007 at Hotel Gra Ashok, Bangalore. It is a collaborative effort of Coffi Board and the Indian Coffee Industry. This Three da: festival will show case the diversity and uniq strengths of Coffees of India. Large number international delegates, prominent international speake coffee traders, equipment & machinery manufacture etc., are expected to participate in the various conferen sessions, trade fair and buyer seller meet.
With about 4% share in the world market we cann compete with our volumes in the global coffee mark, Similarly our cost of production being very high it' difficult to be cost competitive with many oth origins. Therefore it is very important to appropriatel! position Indian Coffees based on our strengths. 0 of the areas the conference would deliberate would on differentiation and traceability of coffees soure from India.
Sustainability of coffee grower is crucial for the sustainability of entire coffee economy. Hence the conference will also explore the opportunities to make the whole farm a sustainable unit by exammmg the opportunities for compatible mixed cropping.
Another major area that the conference is looking for is to show case the innovations in the coffee retailing technologies. This we hope would open up opportunities to both 'International Coffee Majors' as well as Indian entrepreneurs to invest in the Indian coffee retail market. This would eventually help in developing a vibrant' coffee retail economy and generate jobs.
IICF-2007 would also examine as one of the main themes "Coffee and Health" to remove the misconceptions about coffee in the light of large volumes of scientific data and findings now available.
While welcoming again all the industry leaders, members of the media and all those present here, I request the Hon'ble Union Minister of State for Commerce Sri Jairam Rameshji to formally launch the IICF 2007, by way of launching the website for IICF 2007 and address the gathering.
Thank you.
