| SPECIAL
REPORTS |
|
|
|
High
Prices for Coffee, but Only on the
Internet
Néfer
Muńoz
SAN JOSE, (IPS) - While coffee prices
hit rock bottom in the real world, an
auction organised on the Internet by
Costa Rican coffee-growers pushed prices
sky-high. The recipe? Specialty coffee
marketed without intermediaries.
José Antonio Vega, a 42-year-old coffee
farmer, recently discovered that his
crop can fetch excellent prices over the
worldwide web.
''Some people in Japan paid us 4.08
dollars a pound. What do you think of
that? That's more than 400 percent
higher than what we can earn on the
conventional market!'' he commented
excitedly.
Vega, the son of rural labourers, is not
only a coffee farmer, but also a
computer engineer and the head of sales
and exports at CooproNaranjo, a
cooperative of 1,600 small coffee
growers who took part in the May 15
on-line auction.
On-line coffee auctions offer a novel
mechanism that forms part of a strategy
to promote Costa Rican coffee as a
gourmet product.
The Specialty Coffee Association of
Costa Rica (SCACR) and the Costa Rican
Coffee Institute (Icafé), an agency
made up of government officials,
farmers, processers, roasters and
exporters that oversees the coffee
industry and regulates domestic sales
and exports, created the Gold Crop
brandname.
Thousands of coffee farmers are invited
every year to present their beans in the
Gold Crop competition that chooses the
10 best varieties, which are auctioned
on-line to bidders in Asia, Europe and
North America.
The initiative has the backing of the
Specialty Coffee Association of America
(SCAA), in the United States.
In this year's auction, Japanese and
U.S. buyers bid on the specialty coffees
that won the Gold Crop competition, of
which they had previously been sent
samples, and purchased 250 100-pound
(46-kg) sacks for prices between 1.48
and 7.35 dollars a pound, compared to
0.64 dollars a pound on the New York
market.
The aim was not to sell on a
large-scale, but to promote the quality
of Costa Rica's specialty coffees and
forge links with large international
buyers.
''This year has been a real success,''
Mauricio Cercone, executive president of
the Specialty Coffee Association of
Costa Rica, told IPS. The on-line
auction ''is a strategy for promoting
the highest quality, from the bean to
the cup.''
The beans presented in the competition
are first sampled by a panel of local
experts, who make a pre-selection of the
best varieties. After that, 20
international connoisseurs (''cuppers'')
draw up a final list with the 10 best
picks, which are auctioned over the SCAA
web site.
''These are prices never before seen in
the history of our coffee,'' said
Cercone. ''Other countries like Brazil
and Vietnam sell on a large-scale, but
that's not our goal. We want to promote
ourselves as providers of gourmet
coffee.''
Cercone said the initiative opened the
door to new markets, by putting small
growers in touch with powerful buyers in
the United States and countries in Asia
and Europe.
Buyers from 45 countries who took part
in this year's auction were previously
sent a 300-gram sample of each of Costa
Rica's 10 best picks.
After they registered, the participants
were given a password that allowed them
to make bids from anywhere in the world.
The auction was public, which meant it
was accessible to anyone interested in
observing it, merely by going to the
appropriate web page.
''We used to sell our coffee to
middlemen, but now we are selling it
directly to the clients,'' agronomist
Francisco José González, the manager
of the El Patalillo coffee plantation,
said in an interview.
González runs a family business that
was founded in 1888, which was hit hard
in recent years as international prices
plunged below production costs.
But El Patalillo now sells part of its
crop to the U.S. Starbucks coffee shop
chain. In this month's auction, the
family business sold 20 sacks of its
best coffee to another company at 7.35
dollars a pound -- earning around 15,000
dollars for a small quantity of coffee.
El Patalillo's coffee was classified as
the best of the Gold Crop this year, and
González said he believed the company
has found its niche on the global
market.
Costa Rica has high production costs
compared to other coffee- producing
countries, due to higher labour,
environmental and quality standards.
''Now what we are trying to do is make
sure that is not a disadvantage, but an
advantage, because clients pay more for
top- quality coffee,'' said González,
who added that ''the future of our local
coffee industry lies in specialty
coffees.''
Growing gourmet beans requires a
harmonious combination of a number of
factors, including quality seeds grown
at a high altitude, and the right
temperatures, amount of rainfall and
overall humidity level.
Throughout the 19th and much of the 20th
century, coffee was Costa Rica's main
export. But it has now fallen to fourth
place, behind microprocessors, bananas
and textiles.
In 2002, Costa Rica took in 166 million
dollars in revenues from coffee exports,
according to Icafé figures.
Thousands of Costa Rican families depend
on coffee-growing for their year-round
livelihood, while thousands of others
depend on it for an income during
harvest season.
More than 85 percent of the country's
70,000 growers are small landowners.
The government and farmers are working
together to seek alternative mechanisms
for promoting the country's coffee and
keeping the local coffee industry alive,
such as this month's auction.
Most of the international companies that
took part in the bidding are involved in
roasting and grinding the beans and
distributing coffee to leading global
chains.
''When would I have had the opportunity
to advertise my coffee to the large
global roasters? Perhaps never. That is
why we are already anxiously awaiting
next year's auction,'' said González
with visible enthusiasm.
• Internet
Coffee Auctions
•
Costa
Rican Coffee Institute
Email
this page to a Friend
|
|
|
|
