Indian coffee board- monthly magazine- In The News - 05-06 coffee exports may reach last year's level

The 30% volume gap between India's 05-06 first quarter (Ql ) exports and the '04-05 Q 1 exports is narrowing. By the end of the first half (H I ) of the current '05-06 fiscal. tile volume gap had narrowed to below 26%.

With India's new coffee crop arrivals starting in November-December, and with demand peaking in the US and European markets in the cold winter, Coffee Board officials expect 05-06 fiscal exports to either maintain or be marginally below the 04-05 level of 195,674 tonnes. However, in terms of value, 05-06 realisations from coffee exports are expected to be well above the 04-05 level of Rs. 1,100 crore.

Which is because the unit-realisation for Indian coffee is 40% higher for the current fiscal, so far averaging Rs. 72,501 per tonne as against Rs. 51,544 for the previous fiscal. Which is why despite shipmentpermits issued for the current fiscal HI being for 72,501 tonnes or almost 26% below the 04-05 fiscal H I level of 112,828 tonnes, H I realisations for this fiscal are Rs. 540.60 crore or only around 8% less than the 04-05 level of Rs. 590.13 crore. Realisations are worked out on the basis of confirmed shipments and the current fiscal's H 1 value will go up as and when exporters confirm all shipments to the Coffee Board.

There is more good news for Indian Coffee. The single biggest importer of fine Indian Coffee, the Italybased illycafe, plans to step tip sourcing from this country by atleast 10% a year. Currently, illycafe annually sources around 40,000 bags from India, working out to roughly 20% of India's Plantation A. illycafe is the world's largest selling single espresso blend with almost six million cups being drunk daily in over 100 countries. illycafe is blended from Plantation A sourced from 14 coffee-growing countries.

India accounts for 20% of this blend, according to illycafe Chairman Andrea Illy.

India and Brazil are two countries where illycafe annually presents awards to the growers of the finest Plantation A. The illycafe Gold Cup forth is year was awarded to Father S.J. Rayappan of St. Michael's Estate, Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. The first runner-up was N Shivakumar of the SR Plantations in Chikmagalur, Karnataka. The second runner-up was the Sangemeshwar Coffee Estates in Chikmagalur. 'fhe winner picked up a prize of $ 10,000 and the runners-up $ 7,000 and $ 5,000.

Dr Illy told newspersons that India's domestic coffee consumption-lower at 70,000 tonnes than even Portugalcould pick up if the high tariff of over 100% on imported roasted coffee was phased out since there was a rapidly increasing category of Indian consumers demanding premium internaional brands. However, former Upasi president Anil Bhandari felt this could be phased out after demand had been created through a generic campaign to boost domestic consumption so that indigenous roasters could get a head start.