Expanding Jamaica Blue Mountain Coffee in the EU

What Buyers Want

Expanding Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee in the EU Windward Commodities 30th June 2022

6.2. It’s all quality all the time All of which is confirmed by Algrano’s survey of 54 roasters from 13 countries in Europe, and 76 producers from 15 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. This validates the clear qualitative findings from the direct interviews refenced above. The key take out here is that quality is by far the most important purchase consideration for roasters. In some ways this is to be expected, the research is carried out in the specialty segment where coffee quality is a key driver. However, the coffee sector is also a highly competitive business and the fact that pricing was the third most important factor by some way (in terms of a ‘suitable price range’ for the buyers and ‘ability to secure pre financing’ for producers) is surprising: said that there could be interest with innovation and quality behind the brand - such as new varietals and processing techniques, to experiment and expand JBM flavour portfolio and interest, working with cuppers and roasters in the EU market. This would involve trialling alternatives to the Arabica Typica and Bourbon varieties, exploring higher yielding, disease and climate resistant and different tasting varietals such as Gesha and Javanica working with agronomists. JACRA has recently approved natural processing, but there is potential to include honey and anaerobic processing in addition to this.

30 | Time to Wake Up and ‘Cup’ the Coffee