Global coffee intake to touch 134 m bags

Global coffee consumption, that has been relatively unaffected by the slowdown, is poised to reach 134 million bags (1 bag of 60 kg each) in the current year despite several hiccups in the coffee industry including currency fluctuation and instability in pricing.

International Coffee Organisation (ICO) executive director Nestor Osorio said the world coffee consumption was estimated at 132 million bags in 2009 compared to 130 million bags in 2008.

?Global coffee consumption has been relatively buoyant in the recent years. Should this continue, my preliminary estimation for 2010 indicates a level of around 134 million bags,? he stated.

World coffee consumption has been increasing steadily during the past five year.

Global coffee consumption that stood at 119.93 million bags in 2005 increased to 123.52 million bags in 2006 and further more to 128.14 million bags in 2007.

Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Ethiopia and India are the major countries in coffee consumption.

Among the importing countries, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK were the major coffee consuming destinations.

Coffee consumption in Brazil increased to 18.20 million bags in 2009 from 15.39 million bags in 2005 while it climbed to 3.33 million bags from 2.37 million bags in Indonesia during the same period. Mexico’s consumption surged to 2.20 million bags in 2009 from 1.55 million bags in 2005 while in India coffee consumption jumped to 1.57 million bags in 2009 from 1.27 million bags in 2005.

The coffee importing countries contribution stood at 94.29 million bags, representing a whopping 71.44% of the world coffee consumption.

However, coffee producing countries share in the world coffee consumption stood at 37.70 million bags, just 28.56% of total coffee consumption in the world.

Among the importing countries, Germany topped in the coffee consumption recording 8.89 million bags in 2009, a rise from 8.66 million bags registered in 2005 while consumption in Italy increased to 5.83 million bags from 5.55 million bags and France to 5.56 million bags from 4.78 million bags during the period under review.

Despite increased domestic consumption in exporting countries, per capita consumption remained below 4 kg in all these countries with the exception of Brazil.

Of the 36 importing countries, 18 have a per capita consumption above 4 kg. In per capita coffee consumption, Finland ranked first with 11.98 kgs followed by Norway with 9kgs, Denmark 7.90 kgs, Switzerland at 7.68 kgs and Sweden 7.38 kgs.