By Jean Guerrero
Dow Jones Newswires
September 28, 2011
MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Nestle SA (NESN.VX, NSRGY) is expanding its coffee operations in Mexico with a $15 million plan to establish its first coffee-propagation center in a coffee-producing country and locally develop 30 million coffee plants by 2020, company officials said Wednesday.
Nestle signed an agreement with Mexico's National Institute of Forestry, Farming and Fishing Research and with the Mexican crop-technology-and-distribution company Agromod to expand on its Nescafe Plan announced in August of last year.
The new public-private alliance raises Nestle's initial goal in Mexico of planting five million high-yielding coffee trees by 2015, which was part of its plan to distribute 220 million plants world-wide by 2020. It turns Agromod's current crop-propagation laboratory in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas into a local-development-and-distribution center for Nestle's coffee plants starting in 2012.
"It's going to translate into tangible benefits for Mexican producers and for this very important sector in Mexico," said Mario Vera, vice-president of the coffee-and-beverages unit for Nestle Mexico.
Vera said Nestle plans to increase Mexico's output to keep pace with rising global demand. With the local propagation center, Nestle no longer will have to transport plants developed in its Tours, France center to Mexico in a trip that is sometimes damaging to the plants, he added.
Slightly more than half of the coffee plants will be of the arabica variety, and the rest will be of the robusta variety, he said. Arabica coffee beans fetch a premium, while robusta beans are often used in instant-coffee blends.
Between 2002 and 2010, Nestle developed and distributed more than 3.9 million coffee plants in Mexico for more than 4,000 producers.
The new effort adds to a nationwide government program started in recent years to provide financial aid to coffee producers who want to replace old, low-yielding coffee plants, particularly with robusta varieties, which are scarce in the country.
According to Agromod's president, Alfonso Romo, the plan will lead to increased salaries for producers because of higher yields. "We are doing this for the Mexican rural sector; we have a lot of wealth that we haven't taken advantage of," he said.
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Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones Newswires
Dow Jones Newswires
September 28, 2011
MEXICO CITY -(Dow Jones)- Nestle SA (NESN.VX, NSRGY) is expanding its coffee operations in Mexico with a $15 million plan to establish its first coffee-propagation center in a coffee-producing country and locally develop 30 million coffee plants by 2020, company officials said Wednesday.
Nestle signed an agreement with Mexico's National Institute of Forestry, Farming and Fishing Research and with the Mexican crop-technology-and-distribution company Agromod to expand on its Nescafe Plan announced in August of last year.
The new public-private alliance raises Nestle's initial goal in Mexico of planting five million high-yielding coffee trees by 2015, which was part of its plan to distribute 220 million plants world-wide by 2020. It turns Agromod's current crop-propagation laboratory in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas into a local-development-and-distribution center for Nestle's coffee plants starting in 2012.
"It's going to translate into tangible benefits for Mexican producers and for this very important sector in Mexico," said Mario Vera, vice-president of the coffee-and-beverages unit for Nestle Mexico.
Vera said Nestle plans to increase Mexico's output to keep pace with rising global demand. With the local propagation center, Nestle no longer will have to transport plants developed in its Tours, France center to Mexico in a trip that is sometimes damaging to the plants, he added.
Slightly more than half of the coffee plants will be of the arabica variety, and the rest will be of the robusta variety, he said. Arabica coffee beans fetch a premium, while robusta beans are often used in instant-coffee blends.
Between 2002 and 2010, Nestle developed and distributed more than 3.9 million coffee plants in Mexico for more than 4,000 producers.
The new effort adds to a nationwide government program started in recent years to provide financial aid to coffee producers who want to replace old, low-yielding coffee plants, particularly with robusta varieties, which are scarce in the country.
According to Agromod's president, Alfonso Romo, the plan will lead to increased salaries for producers because of higher yields. "We are doing this for the Mexican rural sector; we have a lot of wealth that we haven't taken advantage of," he said.
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Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones Newswires
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