MILANO – Comunicaffe International has interviewed Yannis Apostolopoulos, the Deputy executive director of SCA. He talks about the future prospects of coffee
Coffee: why to invest in this product
“Because, during the crisis of 2009, we decide to invest into something that could be an earning product. So, we choose coffee.”
What has happened when two realities as SCAA and SCAE start working together
” When we met, we realised that we have three challenges. One was the system challenge: we both hadn’t an aligned system. On a bord level we realised that there was a huge cultural gap between the two organisations. The member prospectives are very high. And we had to deliver to their expectations. So we had a vision of how to make a better coffee. But we had to do that through the resolution of this issues.”
What about the resolution?
” Above all to merge two organisations into no profit together. Focused on delivering the political aspirations such a merger and now we need to make this happen. It’s really challenging to get our system together. To make converge two different cultures. To align what are the European culture and the American one. How to embrace also the different cultures around the world. It’s also difficult to manage the many expectations“.
Positives sides
“Finally we are not in competition anymore. We’re creating a joined education system. This is very important because in that way we can dedicate many resources to the research to sustainability project and event for global members. We are trying to invest our capital to create more value and not to compete anymore.”
And what about the negatives sides
” It would take some times to merge the two system togheter and to get big. To get action around the world and not only locally.”
What about the future?
“The future for coffee doesn’t look good. But also there is a positive message from the new interest of companies regarding the sustainability. The issue of coffee industry on every aspect of it.
What about coffee price? In particular referring to Specialty Coffee?
“The prices for Specialty Coffee? I prefer to speak about Premium Coffee, which are the roast Arabica.Its production has stayed the same over the last 40 years, and there is a reason for that. The main one is that we don’t have enough water to produce those coffees. As the demand grows for this coffees, the prices are going to go up. We’re going to see other production of coffees as the Natural Arabica and the Robusta growing to a more steady price. But for the roast Arabica is going to become rare; so the demand will not meet the supplies and the prices will go even higher.”
