Ceylon specialty coffee in the spotlight in the export market

While Ceylon Tea and Ceylon Cinnamon have taken the brand name of Sri Lanka globally, Ceylon specialty coffee is also seeing a huge potential in the export market. As Sri Lanka has the expertise and the capability to produce home grown specialty coffee, a lot more work has to be done to meet the export demand globally.

Last Tuesday, the Australian government-funded Market Development Facility (MDF) in partnership with the Sri Lankan coffee industry organised the first ‘ Sri Lanka Coffee Festival', a celebration of locally grown, locally sourced, Sri Lankan specialty coffee and Sri Lanka’s re-emerging coffee culture at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. At the event for the first time the Lanka Coffee Association was also launched.

Internationally coffee is often traded in the green bean form. Green bean is divided into two types; commodity and specialty coffee. Specialty coffee is graded above 80 to 100 points on the ‘Q grading’ system, a standardised system developed by the US- based Coffee Quality Institute to assess and grade the quality of coffee beans. Consumers pay attention to a range of factors such as cup quality, ethicality of the value chain, elevation, farmgate details and processing techniques. This makes specialty coffee a journey and an experience.

MDF has made a lot of investments in Sri Lanka in the specialty coffee sector. While introducing the cherry purchasing business model, improving processing, conducting research, improving industry coordination, the facility has also supported in increasing seedling production together with the Department of Export Agriculture.

To date, MDF’s support to the specialty coffee sector has generated, an additional revenue of around Rs. 76 million for partner businesses and an additional income of around Rs. 8 million for the farmers. Through MDF supported business models, 400 coffee farming households have improved their coffee quality and volume to increase their incomes. The current work is anticipated to reach more coffee farming households and the impact to increase with more businesses.

Australian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, David Holly at the event stated, “Take Sri Lanka’s specialty coffee to the whole world. It’s a great opportunity for the private and public sector partners. Australia is very keen in supporting the coffee plantation in Sri Lanka, the small and backyard farmers. Australia’s desire for consumption and Sri Lanka’s desire for production works hand in hand.”