The numbers are in, finally: Starbucks wants to buy 35 million pounds of coffee from Africa by 2009, a 100 percent increase from 17.6 million pounds it bought in 2006.
Daily Guide
February 21, 2008
Ghana is set to embark on various programs aimed at reviving its coffee sector as the country seeks to cut over reliance on cocoa for a bulk of its export earnings, Deputy Chief Executive of the state-run Ghana Cocoa Board, or Cocobod, told Dow Jones Newswires over the weekend.
Charles Bernard Ntim said Cocobod, which is also in charge of the coffee sector, is set to embark on a five-year program. This will include rehabilitation of coffee plantations, replanting, provision of suitable planting materials to farmers as well as inputs like fertilizers to restore coffee output to around the 1980s level of 40,000 metric tons from 5,000 tons now.
Meanwhile, Starbucks Corporation, the world's largest coffee chain expects to achieve its target of doubling coffee purchases from Africa by the end of this year.
According to the company’s General Manager, Peter Torrebiarte, the company is still committed to doubling purchases from Africa and is currently working on various projects across the continent aimed at the development of a sustainable coffee production in Africa.
According to the company’s data, coffee purchases from Africa accounted for 6 percent of the 294 million pounds of coffee the company purchased in 2006.
Starbucks wants to start purchasing 12 percent of its coffee from Africa by the end of this year, Torrebiarte added. However, he did not give actual figures of the projected coffee purchases from Africa.
World coffee price is expected to keep rising, sustained by growing coffee consumption in producing countries and emerging markets in eastern Europe and Asia in particular, the head of operations at the U.K.-based International Coffee Organization, Jose Dainer Sette, told a coffee conference in Kampala last Thursday.
Comments
Post a Comment
Join the conversation