By Antonella Ciancio
October
19, 2012
(Milan)
- Italians aren't the biggest coffee drinkers in Europe - that title goes to
the Finns - but their nation's link with cafe culture is etched on every menu
board, giving the world the espresso, the mocha and the latte.
Now that link is
feeling the strain of recession.
As Europe's debt
crisis drags on, more and more cash-strapped Italians are giving the coffee bar
a miss and taking their morning caffeine hit in the kitchen.
"Italians are
drinking more coffee at home than at the bar," Raffaele Brogna, the
founder of consumer blog community ioleggoletichetta.it, told Reuters.
The trend hasn't gone
unnoticed at the Bar Principe in central Milan, and it is hitting the owner,
Fausto D'Andrea, in the pocket.
Though coffee prices
have risen sharply - reaching a 34-year high on world coffee markets last
summer - D'Andrea has had to freeze prices to keep his clientele.
"There has been
a little slowdown in consumption, but I haven't increased prices," he
said, as he served coffees and sandwiches to customers brandishing corporate
lunch vouchers.
D'Andrea said he
served espressos for 0.80 euros a cup, against average prices of 0.90 euros
charged by rivals in Italy's financial capital.
Still too much for
those opting for a kitchen cup, some of whom are fuelling the growth of the $8
billion single-cup coffee market, dominated by players such as Nestle's
Nespresso and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc, in which Italian
coffee-producer Lavazza also has a stake.
But one-cup coffee
makers and the coffee-filled cups, discs or capsules they use, still account
for only 8 percent of total worldwide coffee sales.
In Italy, at least, that is because the
consumer has gone back to the stove-top moka pot that their grandparents would
have used after the Great Depression.
Consumer blogger
Brogna said most of the 52,000 followers polled on his Facebook and Twitter
pages said they had returned to the moka pot to save money.
"After years
using various coffee machines, we have gone back to our beloved moka ... cheap
and with a unique taste!" consumer Francesca Larcinese wrote on the blog's
Facebook page.
Since entrepreneur
Alfonso Bialetti created his first moka in 1933, the two-chamber steel pot has
resisted competition from the fancy single-serve brewers.
In Italy, nearly 80
percent of the population drink coffee at home, and nearly 60 percent own a
moka, leading moka manufacturer Bialetti said, adding the recession was
encouraging the use of ground coffee.
"Consumers have
certainly become more cautious about spending, and the cost of coffee-filled
cups is higher than ground coffee," said Gaia Mazzon, head of
communications at Bialetti Industrie.
Bialetti
has also started to invest in multi-function machines that use discs and ground
coffee, Mazzon said.
Consumer Annalisa Di
Modugno said she preferred to spend 0.85 euros for a 250-gramme pack of ground
coffee than 30 euros per month on coffee-filled capsules.
The only cost-saving
option not on the coffee table is abstinence.
"I cannot see a
permanent drop in consumption in Italy ... because it's part of their
culture," Roberio Silva, Executive Director, International Coffee
Organization (ICO), told Reuters Television.
"It would be
impossible. I'd give up other things but never coffee," cafe consumer Enzo
Serrani said.
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(Editing by Will
Waterman)