Starbucks of Condado Concepción, located on the road to El Salvador, Guatemala, is a sales point that at a distance of 15 minutes by car, has a potential market of more than 150 thousand consumers, and of this group of people 43% are interested in coffee.
Using the Geomarketing solutions we have developed for our clients, CentralAmericaData's Trade Intelligence team analyzed the environment of some of the main coffee shop locations in Central America. Below is an extract of the study's findings.
Caribbean Coffee Traders Limited will operate from August 1st the 11 coffee shops that in the country operate under the Starbucks brand.
Starbucks executives for Latin America and the Caribbean informed that Caribbean Coffee Traders Limited (CCTL) is managed by businessmen Adam Stewart and Ian Dear, who have a license that leads Starbucks operations in three Caribbean markets, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Due to the reduction in office work and the increase in teleworking, Costa Rican toasters estimate that the local market demand for the beverage has contracted between 15% and 20%, when compared to sales levels prior to the beginning of the health crisis.
With the spread of covid-19 several companies and public institutions, which were able to accommodate their employees' work in the form of teleworking, stopped buying coffee for consumption in the offices.
It is estimated that in El Salvador the current coffee harvest will close at 600,000 quintals, a volume similar to that reported in 1890, when the country had not invested considerably in coffee production.
The lack of maintenance work such as pruning, fertilization, weed control, pests and diseases, are some of the reasons why the volume of coffee cultivation has fallen to levels reported 130 years ago.
In the department of El Paraíso, a high-tech plant was inaugurated that will be dedicated to the production and processing of coffee products and specialty coffees.
The plant is located in Teupasenti and is called BioFortune. A $1 million investment was required and it has controlled fermentation and dehydration equipment.
For the 2019-2020 crop, production is estimated at 1.91 million quintals, about 12% more than in the previous cycle, partly due to the renewal of some coffee plantations.
The Coffee Institute of Costa Rica (Icafé) forecasts that coffee production will increase by 196,760 sacks of 46 kilograms of processed beans, from 1,717,659 quintals reported in the 2018-2019 cycle to 1,914,419 projected for the 2019-2020 harvest.
The launch in the local market of 10 different products of roasted and ground coffee and in capsules of the Starbucks brand, reflects the increase of competition in the segment of premium coffees, which already represents about 4% of total consumption in the country.
The products that will be marketed initially in the chains of Walmart and Másxmenos supermarkets, are distributed by Nestlé, which bought the retail distribution of these Starbucks products globally.
The coffee growers' guild signed an agreement with the Guatemalan-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry to promote local production in the European country.
Directors of the National Coffee Association (Anacafé) explained that the agreement will facilitate the coordination of actions for the promotion and export of coffee from Guatemala to Germany, such as the generation of direct links between producers and buyers.
Walmart will market high quality coffee in Costa Rica under the brand Great Value, owned by the supermarket chain, a product that will be manufactured with beans from Tres Rios, Naranjo and Tarrazú.
Representatives of the company informed that Great Value is offered in supermarkets of the formats Walmart and Masxmenos, in presentations of light and dark roast of 340 grams ground and in grain.
In Honduras, the government announced that it will provide coffee growers with 10-year loans and a 10% interest rate, with a three-year grace period.
In the announcement made by President Juan Orlando Hernandez and the head of the Honduran Bank for Production and Housing (Banhprovi), Mayra Falck, it was specified that the maximum amount of credits for working capital will be $83,000.
Because of a drop in the price of the grain, during the first eight months of the 2018-2019 harvest Honduran coffee sales abroad totaled $673 million, 14% less than what was reported in the same period of the 2017-2018 cycle.
According to figures from the Honduran Coffee Institute (Ihcafe) between the first eight months of the 2017-2018 harvest, which runs from October 2017 to May 2018, and the same period of the 2018-2019 season, sales and exported volume decreased from $786 million to $673 million, and from 6.4 million to 6.3 million, respectively.
Producers in El Salvador asked President-elect Nayib Bukele to manage financing for the renovation of the farm, create a research center and protect the sector by regulating imports.
Through a letter sent to the president-elect on March 18, the Asociación Cafetalera de El Salvador (Acafesal) raised the need for $200 million in funding to renovate the coffee park.
Although the U.S. is the main buyer of Guatemalan coffee, data from the exporters' guild indicate that South Korea is one of the markets that pays the best prices for the grain, while Italy pays one of the lowest prices.
#Although the main buyer of Guatemalan coffee is the United States, there are indications that Asian countries tend to appreciate Guatemalan coffee more, paying a higher price for it, notes the report "Guatemalan Coffee: A Focus on the World Market and Its Productivity.
Honduran coffee growers forecast that for the 2018-2019 harvest, foreign sales income will be reduced by $300 million with respect to the previous cycle.
According to the Association of Coffee Exporters of Honduras (Adecafeh), the bad numbers for the sector continue, because so far this crop has registered a fall of $ 40 million in exports, equivalent to 400 thousand quintals, compared to the previous cycle.
In December 2018, it was reported that the international price of a pound of coffee fell to $1, which is equivalent to a 12% drop compared to the same month in 2017.
Data from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) detail that in the last two months of last year also reported a decline in the price of the pound of coffee globally, in this case was 8% as it declined from $1.09 to $1.