Hello, coffee lovers! With school back in and the weather starting to cool, September brings not only a change in seasons but also some exciting updates in the coffee world. From new product launches to essential shifts in the global coffee market, here’s a quick look at last month’s key highlights to keep you in the loop.
New Coffee Gear
Breville launches yet another coffee machine, Oracle, to its award-winning bean-to-cup coffee machine line. The new coffee brewing bean-to-cup machine comes with an integrated Baratza burr grinder, An auto MilQ milk foaming technology, and a 5-inch touch screen that features ten presets for various coffee preparations - including cold extracted espresso and cold brew.
(Source: PR Newswire)
Nespresso launched yet another lineup of interesting coffee-based products to the US market. The coffee giant recently launched its new coffee honey products, harvested from the same coffee plants used for Nespresso’s Master Origins Colombia capsules. These new products include Nespresso Coffee Blossom Honey and Coffee Blossom Honey Syrup, infused with Nespresso Coffee.
(Source: Food and Wine)
Fiorenzato launched a new F64 grinder with advanced grind-by-weight technology. The newly launched grinder comes in two model options, F64 EVO and F64 EVO, and integrates the brand’s Sense technology, allowing for automated grind setting adjustments. This, in turn, ensures more precise grinding.
(Source: Fiorenzato)
Roaster Product Releases
Nucleus Coffee Tools joins the list of coffee companies to launch innovative products this year, thanks to its first AI-powered virtual roast assistant through its Link Coffee Roaster. This industry’s first comes from the LINK roaster with its App’s Addis 4.1 update that includes “Marv,” an AI virtual roast assistant who helps users optimize their coffee brewing settings. The device has 205 prebuilt roast profiles, and its app lets you find the ideal profile for your coffee. The app features a set of questions for you around processing, origin, and varietal, letting you craft just the perfect cup. The best part of this innovation? No prior coffee roasting experience is needed!
(Source: Nucleus Coffee)
Diamond Brew has rolled out innovative “brew-less” coffee pods in the US market. These pods feature coffee crystals that dissolve in hot or cold water and come packed in hexagon-shaped aluminum pods. The intention of creating this product is to allow coffee lovers a unique coffee-drinking experience without the need for brewing equipment.
(Source: Food Business News)
Atomo’s Beanless Coffee finally hits the coffee shop menu. The Australian-inspired US coffee shop chain Bluestone Lane has introduced beanless coffee to its core menu - expanding Atomo’s US coffee market for the first time.
(Source: Reuters)
The Big Face brand has launched a Ready-to-Drink coffee line featuring a selection of flavored coffee drinks. The newly launched RTD line features non-dairy milk canned lattes (containing oat milk) in flavors such as Original, Coconut Cinnamon, and Ube Vanilla.
(Source: Big Face Brand)
Global Coffee Farming
Global Robusta coffee prices have reached a record high this month, attributed to continued adverse weather conditions that have disrupted crops in major producing regions, such as Vietnam. Conflict in the Middle East has also contributed to the problem as the conflict has disrupted shipping routes, forcing shippers to use the longer southern Africa shipping route between Asia and Europe. This, in turn, has led to increased costs for consumers and even the use of lower-costing beans to blends by roasters. Meanwhile, the frost weather patterns in Brazil have also led to supply shortage fears, causing arabica coffee prices to soar.
In Brazil, Coffee farmers have been hit with yet another harvest issue—fears of cultivating smaller arabica beans that could impact the final harvest volume. Ongoing weather challenges have further contributed to this problem, particularly in the central southern region, impacting the growth of coffee. Robusta-growing farms have also reported similar bean size problems.
(Source: CEPEA)
While global coffee prices continue to rise and Brazil fears smaller harvest volumes, the Brazilian coffee market has nonetheless seen some positives. The first half of 2024 saw Brazil’s coffee exports surge by nearly 50% from January to July - reaching over 28 million 60kg bag threshold in the seven months. This export surge has resulted in a 13% growth in Arabica coffee exports and an 82.2% surge in robusta coffee exports.
(Source: Cecafe)
Meanwhile, the DRC coffee sector continues to struggle - experiencing a 75% decline in production in the past 40 years. Existing issues within the county, such as the ongoing conflict, internal displacement, and smuggling, have further exacerbated the problem and contributed to the gradual decline of the sector. These problems have also made it challenging to accurately determine harvest trends and production volumes. Organizations such as SOCODEVA have been doing their part to support women coffee farmers in the region. However, more is needed to help revive the ever-struggling industry.
(Source: Aljazeera)
The French-based agro-industrial actor Touton has launched the PACT Standard, a verified responsible sourcing instrument with 120 built-in verification points designed to establish traceable, transparent, and sustainable cocoa, coffee, vanilla, and other tropical ingredient supply chains. According to the institution, the PACT Standard will help to proactively address the specific social, environmental, and economic challenges of tropical commodity value chains. This framework also aligns with multiple certification criteria. It complies with European and international regulatory standards - the Global Coffee Platform even recognizes it as an equivalent to the Coffee Sustainability Reference Code!
(Source: Touton)
Planned for launch in September, the Coffee & Climate toolbox is a smartphone and web app that offers access to interactive information about climate-smart coffee cultivation for smallholder coffee farmers, trainers, and experts globally. Designed to adapt to global use, the app works even with low bandwidth and shares helpful information and easy-to-use tools with instructions to help farmers and farming communities with invaluable information. The best part? It is available for free, is extremely user-friendly, and comes in a variety of languages.
(Source: Coffee and Climate)
The Certification body 4C (which works towards sustainable coffee supply chains and improved farmer livelihoods) has secured the Iseal Innovations Fund grant to aid in social auditing and human rights protections. According to 4C services, the organization will use the funds and dedicate the next 24 months to developing a socially sensitive auditing methodology to help detect human rights violations more accurately during site audits.
(Source: 4C Services)
The World Coffee Research has partnered with private partners, including US roasters such as Starbucks, Blue Bottle, and CounterCulture, to begin its 6-year F1 hybrid trials. The project commenced in 2015 to address challenges such as pest susceptibility and climate change - to create more resilient coffee varieties. This 2024 partnership takes the project to the next phase - i.e., pre-commercial trials. It will include coffee variety finalists, favored for their excellent yield and cup quality, including Geisha and Sarchimor.
(Source: World Coffee Research)
Researchers at the University of Queensland have begun using Arabica coffee genome sequencing to develop Australian-grown coffee varieties. The research team mapped out the Arabica genome and is now in the sequencing process -intending to create a resilient variety that can be grown in Australia.
(Source: University of Queensland)
The Brazilian coffee cooperative Expocacer in the Cerrado Mineiro region has continued to campaign for the protection of the authenticity of the region’s coffee. This initiative is intended to curb the abuse of Brazil’s first Designation of Origin of Coffee stamp and further promote its authenticity and traceability.
(Source: Tea and Coffee)
EUDR Updates
Countries and stakeholders continue to make changes and adapt ahead of the EUDR implementation, expected towards the end of 2024. In Vietnam, UNDP has partnered with the country’s Department of Forestry to host an EUDR compliance workshop. The workshop, hosted for coffee producers and commercial forestry workers, features information such as zero deforestation methods, smallholder support, and data sharing—along with insights from Peru’s traceability systems—as footprints for effective tracing systems.
(Source: UNDP)
In Germany, large corporations, such as Neuman Kaffee Gruppe, have announced their EUDR compliance strategy. The green coffee trading organization has created a geodata collection system that showcases its due diligence and established partnerships to help boost value creation efficiency.
(Source: Neumann Kaffee Gruppe)
In the US, the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has launched a satellite technology surveillance system to help track coffee deforestation from space. Working with Space Intelligence, ICE will launch this platform before EUDR is officially implemented.
(Source: Bloomberg)
Coffee Industry Events
Roast Summit is scheduled to take place in Chicago on the 24th and 25th of October 2024.
The summit is intended to bring together coffee roasting professionals and enthusiasts for an immersive art and science of roasting experience. The summit will feature various sessions and speakers to be shared in the future. If you are interested, you can get more updates on the event here.
Author
Donna is a coffee lover and freelance writer from Tanzania. Coffee runs deep in her family, tracing its roots to her grandmother’s running of their first coffee farm in the mid-70s. During the summer seasons, she enjoys writing and co-running her grandmother's small robusta coffee farm with her sister in northwest Tanzania.
