Brazil helps China to boost coffee consumption

For Bunco Wong, president of the Chinese Specialty Coffee Association (CSCA), the trend of economic growth of the country and the cultural changes that make it more palpable scenario that available estimates suggest, which also would make room to a vibrant market for premium products.
But Bunco Wong is undeniably an optimist. Currently, American consumption is around 23.5 million bags of 60 pounds per year, and the latest forecasts from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) point to a volume of 2.8 million bags in China in 2020. In 2012, as an entity, were about 1.1 million bags, or just 25 grams per capita, even more than the country's imports, which totalled 1.4 million bags.
Even far more pessimistic than the CSCA, the ICO recognizes that the growth potential of the Chinese market is immense, especially when the example of Japan, where cultural barriers were also a major hurdle comes to the fore. Initially "discredited" as a possible major consumer, the Japanese, who now import 7 million bags, occupy the fourth position in the ranking of consumer behind the U.S., Brazil and Germany.
Hope Bunco Wong is deposited in the young, who find in coffee shops that proliferate in China a new lifestyle, more open to Western ways. "The youth of today enjoy more coffee than the old,” he says. And they, according to the executive, account for almost 40% of the population.
According to Wong Bunco, 97 % of the Chinese population consumes tea and 7% "has experience" with coffee, which does not mean daily beverage consumption. Only 3% of people buy specialty coffees. For him, the group of those who have experience with coffee can reach 20 % of the population in ten years.
As president of the CSCA, an entity created specifically with the aim of training, tend to accelerate the trend of progress of the consumption of the product in the country. The association also has value as motivation segment as an alternative job for part of the 4 million Chinese young people coming out of universities in the country every year.
Bunco Wong says that half of graduates are unable to engage in the labour market. And a cafeteria that could employ at least three people and help these young people at the beginning of working life. Volunteer at CSCA, Bunco Wong acts professionally as "financial planner" and it is this work that is the realization of the potential of the segment as an investment option and work.
For 30 years, he says, was not just about coffee in restaurants in the country, only tea. The demand started to grow with the "help" of the tourist regions of Hong Kong, where the first coffee houses were opened between the end of the 80s and early 90s by people who travelled to Taiwan and Japan and realized that there was good supply coffee quality in these markets.
According Bunco Wong, the Chinese love good food and coffee mixed with too much milk, but have begun to appreciate products such as espresso, cappuccino and latte. And, in his view, these consumers are willing to pay for quality - many of them are willing to pay up to $ 5 for a cup of coffee.
In Hong Kong, he notes, there are "unusual" and traditional ways of preparing coffee. It is rare to find anyone to filter the dust in nylon stockings, as it is relatively common to find people put eggshell in the drink to make it creamier. Drinks consisted of tea and coffee is also found in the market. All this is in the crosshairs of cafeterias, whose number grows visibly. Bunco Wong says that there is at least one opening a week and already there are about 20 thousand stores of its kind in China, flags as Starbucks and Pacific Coffee and UCC American, one of the largest businesses of its kind in Japan.
Bunco Wong was recently in Brazil to better understand the segment in the country, and liked what he saw. There in China, for example, certificates of purity for processed coffee, so little patterns to rate the product in "traditional", "top" or "gourmet" as Edgar Koh notes, commercial director of The Fox Bean, the company responsible by bridging the gap between CSCA and the Brazilian Coffee Industry Association (ABIC) .
The executive director of ABIC, Nathan Herszkowicz says that despite the Chinese interest, there is still nothing concrete about a possible deployment in China, similarly to the Coffee Quality Program (PQC) program, developed by ABIC. As Nathan Herszkowicz, the roasted and ground coffees represent only 5% of coffee consumption in the Asian country, where sales of soluble beverage predominate.
Now, the Chinese Association of Specialty Coffee, still moved by only ten members, invite consultants and agronomists to analyse Brazilian coffee production in the Asian country, which is still family run and has little technology. In the future, the idea is to organize an institute capable of developing in China processes like harvesting and post-harvest. Classification beans tests are also on the radar, according to Edgar Koh. However, there are manufacturers of espresso coffee machines interested in accessing the Brazilian market Chinese companies.
Source: Midia News