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

Mon, 30 Jan

• Registration opens for Specialty Coffee Association’s 2023 Re:co Symposium. The two-day event will include lectures, seminars, sensory experiences, and networking opportunities. This year’s Re:co Symposium will be held at the Oregon Convention Centre in Portland on 19 and 20 April.

• US Coffee Championships announces winners from first regional qualifying round in Baltimore. A total of 63 competitors from six different US Coffee Championships will proceed to the 2023 National US Coffee Championships, which will be held from 21 to 23 April. The second regional qualifying round will take place in Denver, Colorado from 3 to 5 March.

• Coffee equipment manufacturer Joy Resolve launches Groove Compact portable grinder. The battery-powered 36mm-burr grinder includes a built-in bean storage compartment, and features more than 45 different grind settings.

• Bluestone Lane opens first airport location at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport. The Australian-inspired US coffee chain plans to open more airport locations in New York and Boston later this year.

• Indian coffee chain Barista aims to open 50 stores in Sri Lanka in 2023. The company currently operates 19 stores in Sri Lanka – making it the country’s largest coffee chain.

• Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency helps install drip irrigation systems in Kenya. In partnership with Kenya’s Coffee Research Institute, the Turkish agency helped to implement drip irrigation systems on eight acres of land in the Ruiru region. As part of the project, seedlings will be planted in these areas, with the overall aim of boosting Kenya’s coffee production.

• Rancilio Specialty’s RS1 espresso machine receives Italian Espresso Institute’s Premium Certification. The multi-boiler RS1 passed an initial sensory test to assess the machine’s consistency in terms of extraction temperature, pre-infusion technology, and steam production. The results were then verified to ensure compliance with the Italian Espresso Institute Premium Certification standards.

Tue, 31 Jan

• Starbucks opens 150th store in Chile with franchise partner Alsea Cono Sur. The coffee chain plans to open a total of 300 locations in the country over the next few years.

• Coffee Ventures Europe announces dates for 2023 Paris Café Festival and 2023 Amsterdam Coffee Festival. The Paris event will take place at Le Carreau du Temple from 13 to 15 May, while the Amsterdam event will be held at Westergas from 30 March to 1 April.

• Simonelli Group opens new Campus in Belforte del Chienti, Italy. The campus is set to host its new Engaging Talks series, which starts with The new role of the company in the territory: how to build a successful, sustainable, innovative company. Vice President of illycaffè, Marina Salamon, will host the seminar.

• International Women’s Coffee Alliance announces Elizabeth Nyamayaro as keynote speaker for 2023 IWCA Breakfast. Nyamayaro is a UN Special Advisor for the World Food Programme. This year’s IWCA Breakfast will celebrate the association’s 20th anniversary, and will take place at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Portland, Oregon on 22 April.

• Caffè Nero reports 17% UK sales growth in first half of 2022/23 financial year. The coffee chain says its partnership with Deliveroo and Just Eat generated £3.5 million (US $4.3 million) in revenue, while its new self-serve Coffee At Home concept led to £1.5 million (US $1.8 million) in revenue.

• Westrock Coffee to develop new ready-to-drink distribution centre in Arkansas, US. Construction of the company’s new 5,000 square metre facility, which will also provide support with product development and packaging, is expected to be complete by the end of 2023.

• Rabobank International anticipates that consumers are likely to keep paying higher prices for coffee in 2023. In a Bloomberg article, the financial services company says that despite recent drops in the C price, increasing labour, energy, and packaging costs mean that the price of a cup of coffee is likely to remain high for consumers this year.

Wed, 1 Feb

• New research finds adding milk to coffee may have anti-inflammatory effects. A study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry suggests that reactions between milk proteins and antioxidants in coffee can significantly increase anti-inflammatory activity in human cells.

• Sucafina North America completes full acquisition of green coffee importer Sustainable Harvest. Sucafina says its acquisition of the green coffee importer in Portland, Oregon will help to drive sustainability and innovation ac supply chain.

• Applications open for 2023 SCA Austria chapter elections. Nominations are open until 8 February, and voting will take place between 22 February and 8 March. The results of the election will be announced on 15 March.

• New study finds “huge differences” in caffeine content across major UK coffee chains. New research from Which? found that a medium cappuccino from Costa Coffee contains 325mg of caffeine, compared to 197mg, 180mg, and 66mg in the same size beverage at Greggs, Pret A Manger, and Starbucks, respectively. The variations in caffeine content are a result of the number of espresso shots the drink contains, as well as the amount of robusta included in the coffee.

• Oatly adds climate footprint labels to select products in the US. The company partnered with Carbon Cloud to calculate emissions for its products. Oatly’s chilled Barista Edition oat milk produces 0.81kg of carbon emissions per kg of product, while the ambient version produces 0.75kg of carbon emissions per kg.

• Alshaya Group opens new Starbucks production facility in Sudair, Saudi Arabia. Opened in partnership with the Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones, the facility will supply food products to 400 Starbucks stores in the country. Alshaya currently operates more than 1,000 Starbucks stores across the Middle East.

• WMF to debut new “espresso NEXT” semi-automatic portafilters at Internorga trade fair from 10 to 14 March. The German company says its new machine is designed to provide more support to hospitality businesses experiencing staff shortages.

Thu, 2 Feb

• ASIC Conference 2023 to be held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 11 to 14 September. The annual event covers a number of topics relevant to the coffee industry, including plant pathology and protection, farm management, and sustainability and climate change.

• Co-founder of Girls Who Grind Coffee anticipates greater representation of women in the coffee industry in 2023. Casey Lalonde also predicts that farmers will experiment with more innovative processing methods using unripe cherries, and that consumers will continue to make more sustainable and equitable purchasing decisions.

• Specialty Coffee Association announces Pacific Foods Barista Series as the Title Sponsor of 2023 Specialty Coffee Expo. The plant-based beverage brand is a long-term partner of the SCA. This year’s Specialty Coffee Expo will take place from 21 to 23 April in Portland, Oregon.

• Catalyst Trade to host webinar focusing on the Ethiopian coffee sector. The Ethiopian Current Events & 2023 Harvest online event will take place on 9 February at 9:00 PST. Attendees will be able to ask a number of questions related to coffee prices and quality, political issues in the country, and more.

• Chemex launches new eight-cup ChemAer. The new brewer was developed in collaboration with Trendglas and four-time Hungarian Barista Champion Attila Molnár. The ChemAer includes built-in aerator paddles, which the user activates by swirling coffee against the sides of the brewer. Chemex says that the aeration helps to create new sensory profiles.

• Balzacs Coffee Roasters to serve Califia Farms at all locations. The Canadian coffee chain operates 16 stores in the country, and will begin to roll out Califia Farms products at all locations in the coming months.

• Colombian coffee chain Juan Valdez to expand presence in Panama. The brand, which also operates locations in Ecuador, Spain, and Turkey, plans to open 11 stores by mid-2023.

Fri, 3 Feb

• UK roaster Iron & Fire invests in new machine to triple roasting volume. The custom-built roaster has a larger capacity compared to the company’s previous machine, which Iron & Fire says will allow it to scale operations.

• Oatly appoints former Danone executive as General Manager for Latin America and international markets. Juan Carlos Sapiña will support the oat milk brand to increase production volumes following several supply shortages over the past few years.

• Regional final of 2023 UK Barista Championship to take place on 10 February in Chichester. The competition will be hosted at the Assembly Rooms, with the winner representing the UK at the 2023 World Barista Championship in Athens, Greece.

• World Coffee Alliance announces new Alternative Coffee Protocols roundtable series. The first episode What is consumer demand protocol? will take place on 28 February at 15:00 GMT. Speakers will include CEO at Enveritas, David Browning, and Group Sustainability Manager at UCC Europe, Malcolm Hett.

• SCA opens October 2023 intake applications for Certificate of Advanced Studies in Coffee Excellence. The postgraduate course, which was developed in partnership with the ZHAW Coffee Excellence Centre, is available to people with a university degree and at least two years of professional coffee or related field experience. Registration is open until 4 September.

• CEPEA says Brazil’s coffee industry experts are uncertain about 2023/24 harvest. Despite the research institute’s predictions that production of arabica will increase by 14.14% this season, industry analysts remain unsure about what to expect in 2023/24.

• Starbucks China sales drop by 29% in first quarter of 2023. The steep decline in sales is attributed to the country’s Zero Covid policy. Starbucks expects sales in China to decline further, despite rapid growth in the country’s coffee market. Following the release of its 2023 Q1 report, Starbucks’ share prices fell by 2.2%.

• Dalla Corte Icon receives 2023 Chicago Athenaeum GOOD DESIGN Award. The company’s multi-group espresso machine placed first in the Retail Fittings category. A model of the Dalla Corte Icon will be permanently displayed at the museum.

• Cardinal Spirits launches new Songbird Spiked Cold Brew. The drink is made with Songbird Coffee Liqueur and a dark roast Guatemalan from Good Folks Coffee in Louisville, Kentucky.

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

• Mon, 23 Jan – Watermark Coffee launches Green Ocean Coffee to help repopulate oyster and sea grass reefs in Ireland. For each bag of coffee sold, the company pledges to restore 1 square metre of seabed, which will be used to re-establish oyster and seagrass populations in Clew Bay Co Mayo, Ireland.

• Wed, 25 Jan – IoT startup Bibecoffee raises US $2.2 million to fund real-time digital monitoring solution for coffee machines. The funding round, which was led by Eleven Ventures, will help the company to develop and distribute its software, which is compatible with a number of professional coffee machines.

• Thu, 26 Jan – Former Juan Valdez executive receives six-year prison sentence after stealing more than US $900,000 from the company. Reuters reports that Rosita Joseph was sentenced in Manhattan, New York after pleading guilty to grand larceny in the second degree. Joseph confessed to inflating her paychecks and expensing non-company trips and luxury items on the Colombian coffee brand’s business accounts.

• Thu, 26 Jan – Philippines’ largest instant noodle manufacturer Monde Nissin Corporation acquires 15% stake in Figaro coffee chain. The US $15 million acquisition will allow Figaro to double its store footprint in the country by 2024.

• Fri, 27 Jan – South Korean mobile network provider SK Telecom launches AI-powered robot barista. The company says its AI Barista Robot can prepare around 20 different drinks, and can also place lids on coffee cups – which SK Telecom says is the first robot barista to do so.

• Fri, 27 Jan – New study suggests caffeine consumption may temporarily alter brain structure. Researchers at the University of Basel say that while caffeine intake does reduce the brain’s grey matter volume, this is not associated with disruptions to sleep. Furthermore, results also suggest that while caffeine consumption has measurable neuroprotective effects in animals, more human-based research is needed.

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