Coffee Board of India has invited applications for admission to the Post Graduate Diploma in Coffee Quality Management (PGDCQM) for the academic year.
The course has been designed to support the requirements of the Indian coffee industry for trained personnel with the specific knowledge and skills required to function as coffee tasters.
Course content includes Coffee cultivation practices, post-harvest management and practices, Coffee Quality Evaluation, Roasting and brewing techniques, Marketing and Trade, Quality assurance systems (Theory and Practical sessions).
The duration of the course is 12 months split into 3 trimesters and is conducted in English.
Free accommodation will be provided only during the first trimester at CCRI, Balehonnur, Chikmagalur.
Eligibility: Applicant must hold a Bachelor’s degree with at least one of the subjects namely Botany, Zoology, Chemistry, Biotechnology, Bioscience, Food Technology, Food Science, Environmental science or should hold a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural sciences.
Admissions are open to those from open category and preference is given to those sponsored by coffee industry.
Selection will be based on academic record, personal interview and sensory evaluation test.
Application: Application forms can be downloaded from www.indiacoffee.org or collected personally from Coffee Board, Bangalore.
Application fee of Rs.1500/- has to be paid online.
Filled in application form along with necessary documents should reach ‘Divisional Head, Coffee Quality, Coffee Board, No.1, Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Veedhi, Bengaluru-560 001’ by 16th September 2022.
Foreign students admitted under open and sponsored categories should be well versed in English language. Their admission is subject to the clearance of Govt. of India.
Interview and selection will be on 30th September 2022.
Course Fee is Rs.2,50,000/-. (Rs,1,25,000/- for SC/ST).
In today’s Finshots we talk about the main issues coffee farmers face in this country
The Story
Coffee!
Each day, over 1 billion people gulp down 2.5 billion cups of this steaming hot beverage. What was called the Devil’s Drink in the 1600s has now become a staple concoction across the world. And there’s one country that produces and exports most of this coffee — Brazil. In fact, it produces a staggering 40% of the world’s coffee and they are the undisputed leader.
But all’s not well with Brazil. The world’s biggest producer has been going through a bit of a rough patch. It has been hit by freakish weather — cold snaps and frost, combined with a lack of rain. Which in turn has led to a fairly lacklustre crop this year.
Now India is seeing a silver lining here. It thinks this could be an opportunity to export more of its own stuff. After all, the Coffee Board expects India to deliver a higher coffee output this year. And maybe Brazil’s loss could be India’s gain?
Well, not so fast. India really hasn’t been doing well on the export front of late. In fact, from FY12 to FY21, coffee exports have fallenby 3% annually. And that’s because Indian coffee farmers are dealing with their own problems.
For starters, there’s climate change.
You see, nearly 80% of India’s coffee production comes from the two southern states of Karnataka and Kerala. But the past few years have been a damp squib. The rains have been erratic. Some years, the monsoon came early and other times it came with vengeance. When the rains came early, the coffee fruit ripened too soon and the output was no good. When it poured heavily, flooding and landslides wiped out the crops. Farmers simply couldn’t catch a break. And with crops destroyed, yields have dropped from 500 kg to 250 kg per acre for the arabica variant of coffee bean.
Then there’s the bit about prices.
In 2019, coffee prices in real terms (i.e after adjusting for inflation) were a whopping 45% below their 2011 level. In some sense, if you were a coffee farmer, you’d have to cut costs and raise output to maintain the same standard of living. In fact, in most cases, there were no improvements. Farmers lost money hand over fist. This was further exacerbated by the excess supply of coffee beans coming in from Brazil and Vietnam. Prices took a real beating.
But the costs weren’t following the same trends. It was becoming increasingly expensive to plant and harvest coffee. For instance, according to the Karnataka Planters Association, the cost per acre of producing the arabica coffee bean variant has soared from ₹50,000 to ₹85,000 per acre. This is just in the past 3 years. Fertilizer prices have shot up. Labour costs have also ballooned. And consequently, the coffee-growing business just isn’t that financially viable anymore. Many small farmers have sold their plantations. Or even begun cultivating other crops instead.
And finally, there’s the policy-related matter.
Even though coffee is a very important crop for India, it doesn’t come under the purview of the Ministry of Agriculture. That’s right! It’s actually a part of the Ministry of Commerce. And that classification creates its own issues. For instance, coffee growers may not get the same subsidies and benefits that are extended to India’s farmers. And that’s not us saying that. Even a senior liaison officer of the Coffee Board, Yercaud and Kolli Hills, said, “Currently, we do not provide any subsidy to farmers.” And unlike many other crops, there isn’t a minimum support price (MSP) scheme pan India that can help alleviate the stress.
Now even if we were to ignore all these problems, India still wouldn’t be able to ramp up coffee production quickly. Simply because growing coffee is not an overnight affair. It takes 3–5 years for coffee trees to mature and yield bright red coffee cherries.
And what’s the government doing about all this?
Well, they are attempting to amend the decades-old Coffee Act of 1942 and replace it with the Coffee (Promotion and Development Bill) of 2022. While it’s too soon to spell out the specifics of the new Act, hopefully, it’ll have measures that’ll bring some respite to India’s struggling coffee farmers.
But wait…there still exists a long-term issue that no one’s paying attention to.
See, coffee is quite a sensitive crop. It needs the perfect temperature to bring out the best aroma and taste in the beans. Even if things get a little hotter, that can have an adverse impact on the quality of the beans. And temperatures in the coffee-growing regions of southern India are expected to rise by around 2 degrees Celsius by the mid-2030s. How are we going to combat this? No one knows yet.
So yeah, it doesn’t seem like India’s coffee farmers are going to be able to sit back on their porch with a cup of joe and relish the tough times in Brazil.
Heavy and unseasonal rains since July have led to most of the coffee dropping off the plants, which planters estimate has led to a 30-35% decline in production in the state.
Since 2018, problems for Karnataka coffee growers have only compounded, making it harder to survive on a product whose prices have seen violent fluctuations as it is connected to global markets while internally few factors have changed to help their cause.
Heavy and unseasonal rains since July have led to most of the coffee dropping off the plants, which planters estimate has led to a 30-35% decline in production in the state.
Ground reality
Coffee growers have multiple challenges such as increasing labour costs due to dire shortage, crop damage, landslides, human-animal conflict, unseasonal rainfall, price fluctuations and the recent proposal on eco-sensitive zones in the western ghats among others.
“The rains have been very heavy and prolonged downpour this time and especially high in the Western Ghats region has led to wet-foot conditions and dropping of coffee. The coffee, which is supposed to be harvested by December, is largely damaged and we estimate a 30% loss in crop,” said Bose Mandanna, a coffee planter and former member of the coffee board.
Hassan, Chikmagalur and Kodagu are the biggest growing coffee regions in the country, accounting for 241,650 tonne production out of total 342,000 tonne produced in India.
With at least 70-80% of the total produce exported globally, coffee was among the biggest foreign exchange earning sectors. However, the importance of this sector has declined over the years, especially the booming information technology and related industries which overshadow plantation revenues now.
“Coffee is a commodity where prices are determined at a global level. But having a strong domestic market is an insulation whenever there is a price variation. So, we don’t want to increase domestic consumption because our coffee is regarded as very high quality and has good demand in the international market. But if there is a bumper production in Brazil and Vietnam, the prices will collapse. At that time, the farmers should not feel that they have suffered a huge loss. That time having a strong domestic market is very important and the coffee board is balancing both,” said KG Jagadeesha, CEO & secretary of the Coffee Board of India.
Nature’s fury
In 2018, 39 villages near Madikeri and Somwarpet experienced several landslides as the downpour wreaked havoc in several parts of Karnataka, especially Kodagu, that resulted in permanent plantation land loss to over 8,000 people, according to Nanda Belliappa, a coffee planter in Huttihole Post, Madapur village near Madikeri.
Several planters have since gone to court seeking relief for permanent land loss due to landslides which they claim was “not an act of god but certainly was a manmade disaster”.
“The incessant heavy rainfall and the huge amount of water released from the reservoirs causing fluctuations resulted in hydrostatic pressure due to which landslides occurred at various places, more particularly in the 39 villages. The river water had entered the plantation zones that were quite far away from the river bed,” according to a petition filed in (Karnataka High court) in 2020.
Located near Harangi Dam, this belt saw the most amount of devastation, in which over 100 people in the state lost their lives.
Belliappa lost nine acres permanently and received ₹35,000 per acre compensation, which was capped at a maximum of 2 ha (1 ha=2.47 acres) or around ₹1.75 lakh as per the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) norms.
“Around 8,000 planters have been displaced. Totally if you see around 900 ha are lost. We are demanding that we be given the same compensation when the government acquires land for roads or other developmental works. On that basis, if we have lost land, the government has to compensate on that level which is normally three or four times the guidance value,” Belliappa said.
Jagadeesha said: “NDRF norms are the same for all farmers as it does not differentiate between coffee or arecanut or anyone else. The compensation is paid at ₹36,000 per hectare for crop loss. For land loss it is a bit more. But the compensation which is paid to a paddy or agricultural farmer or ragi or jowar or coffee is the same. The demand by coffee growers is that plantation crops are different. Even in the (coffee) act, a small coffee grower is classified as 10 hectares whereas it is only 2 hectares. So, they are asking if compensation can be done up to 10 ha.”
He said post the 2018 landslides, a committee under the Karnataka chief secretary did send recommendations to the union government at least three times but are yet to hear back from the Centre.
“The committee unanimously recommended that the compensation be increased from ₹36,000 to ₹72,000 and the 2ha limit be increased to 10 ha. That recommendation has gone, but we have not heard anything. We have written three to four times from the coffee board. We are in favour of giving more compensation to coffee growers because the investment is more,” he said.
Proposed new coffee act
The union government has proposed to replace the 80-year-old Coffee Act with the Coffee (Promotion and Development Bill) 2022 that is expected to come up in the next session of Parliament. “These are very old laws and the idea is only to simplify them, make it easier to do business, ensure that the small people in the different areas like coffee growing, tea growing do not have to suffer from high levels of compliance burden,” Piyush Goyal, the minister for commerce and industry, had said, PTI reported in July.
Among the changes proposed in the new act is the shifting of coffee from the commerce and industries department to agriculture, which, it believes, would give the planters all the benefits from significantly large agricultural schemes.
But, how does this impact coffee growers?
Planters, who spoke to HT, said there was definitely more money and funds in the agriculture department, but fear that coffee would not be treated as a priority when compared to other crops such as paddy, wheat and others. They also said coffee requires officials with expertise in the subject.
“The situation today is that even after cultivating coffee under shade for about 170 years, we are still not globally recognised as shade-grown coffee. These are the things that the coffee board needs to do. The moment the shade is more, our yield productivity will come down to the tune of one-third of what Brazilians do. They have open field cultivation. Coffee boards need to promote, they should certify and see to it that sustainable activity which is practised in the coffee industry gets recognised globally,” said Vishwanath KK, an executive member of the Codagu Planters Association.
Vishwanath said the Indian council of agricultural research must do the research and the commerce ministry should focus on trading, promotion and other commercial activities. “The coffee board served its purpose. The last 20 years there is a clear disconnect between the farmers and the board and the research. Now, there has to be an opportunity for the commodity to take it to the next level,” he said.
Jagadeesha said the proposed coffee act is scheduled to come up in the next session of Parliament, but added that the proposal to change from commerce and industry department to agriculture will make no difference on the ground.
“One of the reasons is since the agricultural department has a bigger budget, the farmers may benefit from this. That too is only an expectation,” he said. However, he said this proposal has not moved on paper and since coffee was export heavy, it will remain with the commerce and industries ministry.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities> Bengaluru News / by Sharan Poovanna, Bengaluru / August 22nd, 2022
The district administration has allocated approximately 1.09 lakh hectares of land spread across six blocks for the expansion of coffee cultivation in the state.
Because of the favourable climate in the district, the ICB (Coffee Board of India) has expressed interest in the process of coffee cultivation expansion. Following that, the district administration mapped the respective lands. Raikia, Daringbadi, Tikabali, Udayagiri, Phiringia, and K Nuagaon are among the district’s 12 cultivation blocks. Horticulture and Soil Conservation mango and jackfruit orchards are being considered for cultivation.
Coffee has been grown on approximately 2 hectares of land in G Udayagiri and 40 hectares in Daringbadi since 1974.It will be an excellent way to increase tourism in Odisha.
Let us know about coffee
It is a brewed beverage made from roasted coffee beans and the seeds of berries from the coffea genus of flowering plants. The seeds of the coffee fruit are separated to produce a stable, raw product: unroasted green coffee. The seeds are then roasted, resulting in a consumable product: roasted coffee, which is ground into fine particles that are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, yielding a cup of coffee.
source: http://www.interviewtimes.net / The Interview Times / Home> Featured / August 19th, 2022
Chacko Thomas, the managing director and chief executive officer at Tata Coffee, has nearly three decades of rich experience in the Plantation industry
Chacko Thomas is a Bachelor of Science with a specialisation in Computer Science from University of Jodhpur. He has rich experience in Plantations, Business Strategy, Sales and Marketing. Thomas has been associated with Tata Coffee since August 2015. Before joining Tata Coffee, he was the MD of Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company at Munnar. Thomas is an alumnus of INSEAD Fontainebleau having done his advanced management programme there.
Thomas has a strong track record in business transformation, delivering sustainable results and building and leading high-performing teams in India and Vietnam, according to his online profile. He also has an extensive experience in general management, setting up distribution channels and running own businesses. He has held board positions in companies in US, Sri Lanka and India. Currently, as its MD and CEO, Tata Coffee is today one of the largest integrated coffee companies serving over 40 countries.
The company states that its suit of major products like Green Bean, Instant Coffee, Tea and Pepper are all about giving consumers a taste of the Tata Coffee goodness. The company has around 8,000 MT annual capacity of shade-grown Arabica and Robusta. Around 90 per cent of its washed Arabica is exported as premium green bean to roasters. The company has 13 Arabica estates that are Starbucks C.A.F.E. Practices certified.
The company’s instant coffee comes in various customised blends that appeal to the palate of its customers, brands, private labels, distributors and large global roasters. Being eco-conscious, all three of its plants – in Theni (Tamil Nadu), Toopran (Telangana) and Vietnam – are fuelled by renewable energy sources.
The company’s distinctive variants of instant coffee are packaged in a fully automated packing unit and delivered across countries like Russia, Africa, Europe and emerging markets like Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Business Growth
On a yearly basis, consolidated net profit of Tata Coffee surged 10.32 per cent to Rs 233.40 crore on a 4.81 per cent rise in revenue from operations to Rs 2,363.50 crore in FY22 over FY21. Tata Coffee’s revenues from instant coffee business consisting of India and Vietnam grew by nearly 9 per cent during the fourth quarter, driven by improved realisations despite lower exports from India consequent to delay in despatches. There has also been an improved margin driven by higher proportion of specialty/differentiated products as well as lower costs. The sales to all key markets have been robust. For the financial year, the revenues from instant coffee business grew by 20 per cent with improved margins. The order book continues to be healthy both, at India and Vietnam, the company said.
Commenting on the performance, Thomas, said, the performance of instant coffee business continued to be robust. “Our Plantation performance on Green Bean Coffee and Pepper during the year had also been strong, aided by improved realisations. Our subsidiary, Eight O’Clock Coffee [EOC] recorded improved performance during the quarter owing to better realisations and favourable channel mix,” he said.
In March, Tata Consumer Products (TCPL) had announced the merger of all businesses of Tata Coffee with itself as part of a reorganisation plan in line with its strategic priority of unlocking synergies and efficiencies.
The plantation business of Tata Coffee (TCL) demerged into TCPL’s wholly-owned arm TCPL Beverages & Foods (TBFL). The remaining business of TCL, consisting of its extraction and branded coffee business, merged with TCPL.
source: http://www.businessworld.in / Business World / Home / August 17th, 2022 / Magazine August 23rd, 2022
Some growers, however, are sceptical because heavy rains in July and August have dampened prospects for the next crop.
Tight supply concerns are likely to affect the cost of coffee
India’s coffee sector is poised for a good spell with forecasts of a good crop in the next harvest and strong export potential amid projections of a lower crop in Brazil, the biggest producer. The outlook for Vietnam, the second-largest producer, is also not rosy.
India appears to be better placed than other major coffee-producing countries for a good crop. The Coffee Board, a government entity that oversees the sector, projected a 15 percent increase in its post-blossom estimate to 393,400 tonnes for the 2022-23 crop, comprising 277,000 tonnes of robusta and 116,400 tonnes of arabica.
The India estimates came amid possibly lower output estimates for Brazil and Vietnam, the top two coffee producers.
Brazil’s national supply company (Conab), in its second survey, cut an earlier coffee crop forecast for 2022-23 by 2.3 million bags to 53.43 million bags. That’s still 12 percent higher than last year, although it is 15.3 percent lower than the record crop of 63.1 million bags in 2020. It cited last year’s drought and frost for the reduction, mainly in the arabica crop.
The company revised arabica production downwards by 3.1 million bags, while robusta output was raised by 760,000 bags because of better productivity and expanded acreage.
Robusta and arabica are the two main types of coffee beans. Arabica is considered the more popular coffee bean.
The United States Department of Agriculture pegged coffee production in Vietnam, comprising mostly robusta, at 30.9 million bags, down 700,000 bags from last year. It attributed the lower output to an escalation in fertiliser prices that led to their reduced use.
Higher prices
Global coffee futures have fallen to $2.12 per pound after hitting a 10-year high of $2.60 per pound early this year on supply concerns from Brazil and robust demand. The industry reckons global prices may stay at a higher level as supply issues continue to dog Brazil and Vietnam. A year ago, prices hovered at about $1.75 per pound.
However, some growers are sceptical about India’s coffee exports this time.
“Heavy rains in July and August have dampened the prospects, particularly in the south Coorg area. We can get a clear picture only in September,” said N Ramanathan, chairman of the Karnataka Planters’ Association.
Karnataka accounts for the largest share of coffee produced in the country.
Coffee exports from India increased by 16 percent to 264,191 tonnes in the period from January 1 to August 9 from a year earlier, according to data from the Coffee Board. The rise came mainly from robusta cherry, whose shipments have gone up by 30,000 tonnes. Export growth was as high as 25 percent in the earlier months as pending orders were executed.
India had record coffee exports of 394,343 tonnes in 2021, bettering the 378,909 tonnes achieved in 2017. The country exports 70 percent of its coffee output.
Europe has traditionally been the strongest market for Indian coffee, especially Italy, Germany, and Belgium.
“This year, purchases from the Middle East and North African countries also increased,” said MP Devaiah, general manager of Allanasons, an agri-based commodity and product company in Mumbai.
India had the advantage of lower freight rates to Europe than the South East Asian coffee-producing countries Vietnam and Indonesia.
Instant coffee
India’s instant coffee exports also picked up after initial hiccups following the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war. Exports to Russia, a big buyer of instant coffee from India, rebounded in the past few months. India also benefitted from lower instant coffee exports to Russia from Brazil.
“Brazil’s instant coffee exports to Russia stopped following sanctions by the US,” said N Sathappan, director of SLN Coffee.
Brazil is predominantly an arabica coffee exporter. A large share of robusta produced in the country is consumed internally and of the remainder, a major portion goes into making instant coffee for exports.
According to the latest report of Cecafé, the Brazilian Coffee Exporters Council, outbound shipments from the South American country fell 5.9 percent to 22. 4 million bags (60 kg each) during the first seven months of 2022 from a year earlier. However, export earnings rose to a record $5.23 billion, up 62.4 percent, on higher prices.
Exports of green coffee – coffee that hasn’t been roasted – reached 20.2 million bags. Shipments of arabica were little changed (+0.1 percent) at 19.3 million bags, while robusta exports plummeted to 939,334 bags, the lowest level since 2019 and down 60 percent, it said.
Over 70 percent of instant coffee exports from India are through value addition of cheaper produce imported from South East Asian and African countries while the rest is produced from local beans. This year, growth in re-exported instant coffee was marginal while shipments of instant coffee from local beans increased sharply.
“Imports from other origins became costly because of freight rate hikes and logistics problems. Hence there was a rise in the use of local beans,” Devaiah pointed out.
The Coffee Board data showed that while re-export of instant coffee after value addition rose by 4 percent, instant coffee made from domestic beans surged by 45 percent in the period from the beginning of the year to August 9.
Sathappan said exporters are now going in for more imports as Indian coffee has become costly with robusta prices going up by 40 to 50 percent. Robusta beans are selling in the range of Rs 4,500 to Rs 4,700 per 50 kg.
The International Coffee Organisation’s latest provincial outlook for global production in the coffee year 2021-22 (October to September) remains unchanged at 167.2 million bags, a 2.1 percent decline from the previous year.It projects world coffee consumption to grow by 3.3 percent to 170.3 million bags, exceeding production by 3.1 million bags.
source: http://www.moneycontrol.com / Money Control / Home> News> Business / by P K KrishnaKumar / August 12th, 2022
Coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world. Cold, hot, or roasted there are plenty of variations. It has become an essential part of many people’s lives. There are many cultures around the world that serve coffee using different ingredients and techniques. From Dalgona coffee to quirky vacuum Syphon coffee. If you want to try this unique Syphon coffee then head to this Big Cup Café in Coorg.
Read this article to learn about the intricate art of making vacuum Syphon coffee.
What makes Vacuum Syphon Coffee Different Than The Rest
If you are a coffee lover you should definitely try this vacuum syphon coffee. The technique used behind this coffee is quite difficult as it is based on the concepts of physics. Siphon coffee has the advantage of altering the flavour of coffee to the point where flavours are more apparent than pour-over techniques. Siphon allows the coffee’s flavours to develop more fully and it brings out some notes that you wouldn’t be able to detect in other methods. The first thing you’ll taste in a freshly made cup of Syphon brewed coffee is the flavour profile.
Big Cup Café offers this unique vacuum Syphon coffee, which is as amusing as it is delicious. This café is located in Coorg, Karnataka the coffee bowl of India. The café is run by planter families based in the town. They have owned and managed coffee plantations for generations and Big Cup is the fusion of expertise in farming and hospitality. The café’s mission is to provide quality coffee, harvested right from its estates and provide a world-class coffee experience to its guests in a relaxed and calming atmosphere.
Big Cup Café is located in 3 different spots in the country. The Flagship café is in Coorg, followed by Sharjah and a recent addition in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha. They are planning to open their café in Chennai and Bangalore.
Head to this café in Coorg and devour this unique vacuum Syphon coffee.
Do you know where your coffee bean is from? How do you know that your Robusta is what it says it is? How can you trust what the brand says about its coffee?
Image used for representational purposes
Reyansh Chaturvedi, a techie in Bengaluru, spends seven minutes grocery shopping, and 20 minutes choosing his jitter juice at the store’s speciality coffee section. Before buying, he first checks the packaging. Then he pulls out his smartphone and scans the QR code on the packet to learn if the Arabica bean he loves did indeed come from Barbara Estate in Chikmagalur, Karnataka, as it claims. Coffee digital traceability is a must for millennial addicts of liquid energy—coffee with credibility.
Coffee digital traceability involves a lot of questions. Do you know where your coffee bean is from? How do you know that your Robusta is what it says it is? How can you trust what the brand says about its coffee? Digital traceability of coffee helps customers get right under the skin of the bean, say Anil Nadig and Srivatsa Sreenivasarao, co-founders of the Bengaluru-based TraceX Technologies, a blockchain tech company that promises to outlay the entire ‘bean to cup’ odyssey. All buyers have to do is scan the barcode on any coffee packet, which will take them right to a web page with a product summary, geographical location of the coffee estate, quality data, information on production, procurement and processing, and dispatch. It also sends links to videos and photographs.
There is also hot news brewing that the current session of Parliament will take up the repeal of the Coffee Act of 1942. For the last 80 years, coffee production and distribution in India have been under the purview of an outdated Colonial law. The draft Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022 is expected to position India as one of the world’s top coffee-producing and exporting countries. Nadig says, while the Bill could open up the market, quality control is crucial.
“Coffee is a premium product and Indians are pulling out all the stops to lay their hands on new speciality coffees. They want to know where their coffee is grown, the altitude, location, drying duration, how it was roasted, processes it underwent, whether it was ethically sourced, fair-trade coffee from a farmer’s collective without involving child labour and the distance and time spent in transit,” he adds. In simple terms, this technology helps you understand the boxes the coffee bean has ticked before it arrives in your cup. A report published by Markets and Markets in March 2022 indicates that the food traceability market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9.1 per cent with its estimated value reaching $26.1 bn by 2025.
Srivatsa says when global markets opened up over the last five years, causing a coffee export wave, technology became necessary to ensure transparency. In May 2022, the firm started dealing with 3,500 coffee farmers in Araku Valley near Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. They roped in Technoserve, an NGO working on improving the crop value chain.
TraceX staff through Technoserve personnel send instructions to the farmer’s cellphone in the local language. The platform also sends SMS alerts on actionable points in eight Indian languages, which go to TechnoServe’s crop advisors and field officers simultaneously. It partners with premium Indian coffee brands to track every stage of the process, the cost of which could go up by 13 per cent if brands decide to pass these expenses to the consumer. Some companies, however, don’t resort to this as they believe it’s part of their transparency ethic. Knowledge is power. And your brew may taste better knowing where it came from.
Why blockchain traceability? ✥ The data collected acts as a single source of truth. ✥ It captures real-time data, right from the sourcing of raw materials to input usage and sustainable practices. ✥ The post-harvest module captures and streamlines the production processes, inventory and batch management, and boosts operational efficiency. ✥ Understanding the data generated to help reduce losses due to wastage in the supply chain and provide better insights for stakeholders to make informed decisions.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Food / by Manju Latha Kalanidhi, Express News Service / July 31st, 2022
KAAPI Solutions shakes hands with the Coffee Board of India, United Coffee Association of India and Speciality Coffee Association of India to organise National Barista Championship 2022
Mumbai :
KAAPI Solutions, spearheaded by the former NBC winner and jury member, Vikram Khurana, has announced its platinum sponsorship for the celebrated National Barista Championship 2022. The event is organised annually by the Coffee Board of India in association with the Specialty Coffee Association India and the United Coffee Association of India to honour the best baristas within the country. Renowned as a coffee fanatic’s paradise, the competition will take place in Bangalore and see India’s most beloved baristas competing for the title of the best Barista of 2022.
Considered to be one of the most paramount members of the coffee fraternity in India, Vikram Khurana was the first and only Indian to receive a silver medal in the famed World Barista Championship 2002. Since then, Khurana has gained recognition to be a coffee extraordinaire and has immensely contributed to the growth of speciality coffee in India. In his 21 years of extensive learning experience, Khurana has consulted several Indian and international brands in coffee that have successfully launched. Currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer at his company – KAAPI Solutions, Khurana is also the President of the United Coffee Association of India. Having won the global rendition of NBC, Khurana has had a long-standing association with the decade-old championship. He has been an esteemed jury member at the championship for over 10 long years.
Commenting on this association, Vikram Khurana, Founder and CEO of KAAPI Solutions, added, “Coffee is a language itself. We at KAAPI Solutions are so excited to give voice to this language at the latest National Barista Championship 2022. It will be exhilarating to see the best of the best unite to celebrate our common love for the beverage. We are also thankful to the Coffee Board of India and the Specialty Coffee Association of India for organising an event that honours and celebrates the best coffee talent within our country. I wish good luck and success to all the participating candidates. May you brew the perfect blend and awaken the inner maestro with yourself.”
Celebrating the association with KAAPI Solutions, DM Purnesh, the President of Specialty Coffee Association of India, said, “We have been successfully conducting NBC due to constant support we receive from Kaapi Solutions team run by Vikram Khurana. They have been providing financial support as well as providing coffee machines and helping in installing and giving technical support for the last many years. We wholeheartedly welcome Kaapi Solutions once again for the 20th edition of the National Barista Championship.
We wish all the best for all the participants of NBC 2022″.
KAAPI Solutions is one of India’s leading suppliers of imported coffee machines. The company has grown to become a market leader within the industry. Beyond having the best network of coffee machines across the globe, KAAPI Solutions is also the exclusive partner for Astoria, a brand for premium coffee machines in India. Tempesta by Storm Barista Attitude, part of Astoria, is also known to sponsor the World Barista Championship between 2022-2025.
Dedicated to the pure science of making the perfect blend of speciality coffee, these coffee machines have revolutionised the coffee culture in India. The term ‘Specialty coffee’ or ‘Speciality coffee’ is used to refer to coffee that is graded 80 points or above on a 100-point scale by a certified coffee taster (SCAA). Speciality coffees are coffees at their peak and are different to other coffee because speciality coffee has been grown at the perfect altitude, at the correct time of the year, in the best soil, and then picked at just the right time. All this translates into some of the most exciting and tasty coffee in the world.
A pioneer in coffee technologies, KAAPI Solutions serves as one of the world’s leading suppliers of imported coffee machines. The firm recognises and effectively bridges the gap between efficient and aesthetic coffee equipment within India and enhances the skills needed to relish an authentic cup of coffee.
Their services go beyond supplying the finest coffee machines across the globe. Apart from this, they also provide state-of-the-art espresso equipment and conduct award-winning barista training.
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source: http://www.theprint.in / The Print / Home> ANI Press Releases / ANI PR / July 26th, 2022
Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill is expected to be tabled in the ongoing session of Parliament
Planters’ unions in Karnataka are hopeful that the new legislation on coffee, expected to be tabled in the ongoing session of the Parliament, will usher in much-needed changes in the 80-year-old Coffee Act guiding the industry now. Karnataka is the biggest producer of coffee in India.
The Coffee (Promotion and Development) Bill, 2022, is aimed at promoting holistic development of the country’s coffee industry. It is expected to do away with the existing 80-year-old set of regulations on the commodity, focus on coffee research, domestic marketing of the commodity, creation of drought-tolerant, disease-resistant and better yielding varieties of coffee, among other things.
Special varieties
Planters’ unions told The Hindu that the new law should help focus on development of special and specialty coffee brands and blends and pay attention to a premium variety of coffee, Arabica.
Bose Mandanna, former Vice-Chairman, Coffee Board, and also the owner of Subramanya Estate at Sunticoppa, said that the old set of regulations have been around for too long while the industry has transformed.
All leading coffee associations, including Karnataka Planters’ Association, Coorg Coffee Association, Karnataka Growers’ Federation, United Planters’ Association of Southern India (Upasi), the apex body for plantations and other industry stakeholders, have already submitted their recommendations to the Coffee Board and Ministry of Commerce.
Value chain
“A revised regulation with its holistic provisions aimed at promotion and development of the entire value chain of coffee and enabling ease of doing business is beneficial to all stakeholders and to the general public,’‘ said Shirish Vijayendra, former chairman, Karnataka Planters’ Association.
According to H.T. Pramod, former chairman KPA and Managing Director of Malnad Planters’ Coffee Curing Works, and also a planter from Chikkamagaluru, said, “We want to see more new varieties coming into plantations and expect better interaction and working together with planters and researchers.”
On the backburner
Another planter who does not want to be identified said, “Coffee Board, way back in the 1990s, under the leadership of the then chairman Lakshmi Venkatachalam, had prepared the draft of a replacement of the existing Coffee Act. It was a comprehensive draft done in three years. We submitted it to the Ministry of Commerce, but sadly, several governments sat over it in the last several decades.’‘
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Karnataka / by Mini Tejaswi / Bengaluru – July 26th, 2022
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