Every Friday, Perfect Daily Grind rounds up the top coffee industry news from the previous week. Here are this week’s stories. 

• Saturday, 16 Jan – German roasters The Barn debut luxury coffee subscription service. Under its “Masterpiece” range, The Barn now offers customers affordably-priced rare varieties, such as Geisha and Sudan Rume. One batch will be released every month; the first, starting 3 February, will feature a top Laurina natural aerobic from Brazil.

• Monday, 18 Jan – EU products face import delays and extra costs. After the UK left the EU on 31 December 2020, businesses within the EU sending or selling items to the UK are now faced with added paperwork and import tariffs. These issues come following a swathe of increased orders of roasted coffee in the UK as a result of the country’s third national Covid-19 lockdown, which has caused widespread coffee shop closures.

• Monday, 18 Jan – La Marzocco launches Italian espresso culture research project. The Accademia del Caffè Espresso is partnering with the University of Florence to “blend history, culture, and science” through an exhibition space, indoor coffee farm, and a number of experimental workshops. The project will receive support from coffee institutions from El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala as well as the Alliance for Coffee Excellence.

• Monday, 18 Jan – Israeli roasting machinery start-up debuts autonomous single-dose roaster. Griin Coffee offers customers a direct coffee subscription and countertop roaster. Their product uses volumetric heating (instead of drum or fluid-bed roasting) and a neural network to roast beans using a “fully autonomous process that produces a homogenous and consistent roast every time”.

• Monday, 18 Jan – Vietnam’s biggest coffee exporter will open 49% of its business to foreign investors. The Intimex Group will list new shares on the local stock market. They hope to expand their instant coffee factory, which will reach capacity later this year. The move will have them overtake Nestle SA as Vietnam’s largest instant coffee supplier.

• Tuesday, 19 Jan – The NCA announces over three dozen speakers for March’s three-day NCA Virtual Convention. It will include insights from Euromonitor International on the US post-pandemic coffee landscape, from RD2 Vision on genetically mapping the arabica species, and from the International Women’s Coffee Alliance on innovation at origin.

• Wednesday, 20 Jan – UK businesses face rising export costs and delays. While an earlier story saw EU businesses affected by tariffs, there are also difficulties for export business based in the UK. Added bureaucracy and rising costs mean many are struggling to operate in the same way. In 2019, the EU received almost half of all UK exports, but with considerably fewer delays and hassles. The implications for the UK’s coffee sector have not yet been confirmed, but it could well lead to additional delays and further added costs on exported coffee products.

• Wednesday, 20 Jan – Coffee roaster manufacturer Probat releases 2021’s digital roadmap. The brand has announced it will host virtual events to support the coffee industry with a continuous discussion on industry trends and challenges. Sessions will be livestreamed via social media with no registration or invite required; they will also feature live chat and Q&A sessions.

• Thursday, 21 Jan – Sanremo UK announces Steve Lovegrove as new Sales Director. Lovegrove has years of coffee sector experience, including with Starbucks UK and as a European SCA judge. “I look forward to meeting Sanremo customers in the UK and Ireland and supporting them in growing their business,” he said.

• Thursday, 21 Jan – Nescafé announces upcoming “sustainability roadmap” to support farmers and improve lives. Following the success of the Nescafé Plan, launched in 2010, the brand has pledged to do more to support coffee producers. It “expects 100% responsibly sourced coffee” by 2025; the roadmap will also announce methods to meet its 2025 packaging commitment and a commitment to net zero by 2050.

Here are a few news stories from previous weeks that you might find interesting. Take a look.

• Saturday, 11 Dec 2020 – Coffee experts update the Coffee Brewing Control Chart. The UC Davis Coffee Center has partnered with the Coffee Science Foundation and Breville. They will be updating and expanding the Coffee Brewing Control Chart through sensory descriptive experiments as part of an academic program focused on brewed coffee.

• Friday, 18 Dec 2020 – Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide released with updated green coffee pricing. Over 81 donors provided their sales data, revealing that the median FOB price of specialty coffee for 2019/20 was down 15 cents to US $2.60 per pound. Research suggests this is due to a shift in demand from high-quality, more expensive coffees towards buying lower-scoring beans at higher volumes. 

• Saturday, 26 Dec 2020 – Forbes predict coffee prices will increase in 2021. Having ended 2020 on a three-month high of US $1.28, Forbes believes commodity coffee’s per-pound price will increase in 2021. Like 2018’s price rebound, it’s likely to be caused by decreased supply, with poor weather conditions in Brazil and Vietnam hampering production volumes.

• Tuesday, 12 Jan 2021 – The 2020 Condesa Co Lab Australian Coffee Championships to go ahead this March. The event was postponed by Australia’s Specialty Coffee Association last year due to Covid-19, and will now take place in early March. The event will observe updated World Coffee Events Rules and Regulations regarding safety and social distancing.