Dipping the percolating local coffee industry
OOZING with promises of ample financial returns to growers and sellers in the early 2010s, the country’s coffee industry is seemingly in peril.
The culprit: The massive importation of foreign roasted coffee and beans that results in the inequitable pricing scale by retail establishments, jeopardizing the local produce.
This alarming situation was articulated by two officials of the Philippine Coffee Industry Board, Inc. (PCIB), Nicholas Matti, chairman; and Chit Juan, president, in a news feature written by Bernie Cahiles Magkilat entitled “Local coffee hit by imports,” which came out on the front page of the business section of the ‘Bulletin’ December 25.
The PCIB, an advocacy group for the country’s biggest coffee roasters, is appealing to the Department of Trade and Industry to step in, and maybe, intervene in the bracketing of prices of roasted and ground coffee products, both local and imported, sold in supermarkets and grocery stores.
There is no question that the imported kinds, notably, from the USA and South America have perennially enjoyed patronage or preference among the so-called discriminating coffee drinkers over the Batangas “barako,” the monks’ brew from Bukidnon, or from the highlands of Kalinga and the Cordilleras.
But that is not a sensible argument for a government agency to be unmindful of the disparaging situation to the point of being discriminatory.
The two PCIB leaders also enumerated some factors that tend to diminish the chances of competing fairly with the imported products at the point of purchase, i.e., at the shoppers’ floor areas in supermarkets and grocery stores. Thus:
1. Local roasters are being “squeezed” by charging them all sorts of fees like, for marketing and promotion. This is never done to competing imported products.
2. They are relegated to smaller floor space, while the more profitable imported brands are allotted strategic locations.
3. They are displayed side by side with imported brands which is outright disadvantageous to the former, given the innate Filipino mentality of giving preference to imported merchandise.
4. Imported brands enjoy a 40 percent tariff-free privilege when shipped via any ASEAN country.
5. Local roasters pay premium price to farmers – 1150 to 1180 per kilo – in an effort to help promote local coffee, but multi-nationals buy green coffee beans for only 1100 per kilo.
With these sneaky factors working against local coffee, how can farmers and roasters compete squarely with imported ones?
All this despicable scenario comes on the heels of a reported booming sale of coffee in retail and wholesale outlets.
Coupled with this vibrant sales scenario is the continuous perking up of coffee shops not only in Metro Manila but in many urbanized towns and cities of the country.
Mushrooming side with coffee shops is the formation of “kapihan” groups, coffee clubs, media, and church public opinion assemblies.
On the lighter side, today’s Filipino coffee drinkers prefer ground coffee, study shows. This type served in coffee shops is a matter of leisurely course. Orders for refill are common.
Even in the corporate sector, business or management meetings are punctuated by a continuous flow of piping hot ground coffee.It is now in vogue for big companies to hire on a permanent basis full-time in-house “baristas.”
According to confirmed coffee “addicts,” coffee brands from the US and Canada have an unmistakable superb taste. Even if they are blended with local brands, the aroma and taste of the imported varieties seem to prevail.
Meanwhile, the invasion of overseas coffee shops and foreign brands continues.
Now comes Tim Hortons of Canada that is starting to get noticed for its distinctive coffee, delectable sandwiches, and cakes. A branch set to open at Calle Bistro at Ever Mall is being awaited by 30 or so subdivisions located in the periphery of Commonwealth Avenue.
While Café’Rite, a 3-in-one coffee brand of Singapore’s Foodmine group, is creating a sensation among consumers, so to speak, in the southern Tagalog provinces. Let’s sip (coffee) to that!