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The India International Coffee Festival 2014 will focus on developing the retail market for Indian coffee and promoting awareness among the consumers that coffee drinking is healthy. The India Coffee Trust (ICF) is jointly organising the IICF from January 21 to January 25 in Bangalore after a gap of four years.
“The emerging café culture has changed the way we Indians consume coffee. The per capita consumption has increased from 60-80 gm about a decade ago to about 100 gm now,” said Anil Kumar Bhandari, President, ICF and vice president, IICF Steering Committee.
“However, there is still a lot more left to promote consumption of coffee and spread awareness. The prime objective of the ICF and IICF is to create awareness and expand the retail market for Indian coffee and take it to the Indian homes,” according to Bhandari.
He said, coffee chains like Café Coffee Day, Costa, Java City, Mocha and the recent arrival of global chains like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts has created revolution in the way coffee is consumed in India.
However, there is a greater need to take the coffee from these retail chains to homes across the country, he told Business Standard on the eve of IICF 2014.
Bhandari said the India Coffee Trust is the result of a general consensus among the stakeholders of the Coffee industry to create a non-profit organisation whose primary mandate is to promote coffee consumption in India and to generally promote the Indian coffee industry.
The idea of the trust originated in 2008 and formally commenced its operations in 2011. The major activities of the trust are to conduct the India International Coffee Festival jointly with the Coffee Board of India.
The five-day event will deliberate extensively on the theme ‘The Changing face of coffee.’
“What is set to change is coffee drinking habit, which will be as much in-home as it is out of home today. The mandate of the India Coffee Trust and thereby of IICF has and is to increase not just the coffee drinking habit but to improve the awareness and interest in coffee. With this in mind, we have created interesting skill building workshops that will impart knowledge in not just the way coffee is made and the processes involved,” Bhandari said.
The India Coffee Trust is also working towards demystifying coffee and dispel the myth that coffee drinking is bad, he said.
He said a programme to encourage entrepreneurs to take the coffee movement forward had also been planned. “In addition we have a stellar panel for the international conference, the latest in equipment and machinery at the international expo, events around the theme of coffee to foster alliances and partnerships, which will also provide opportunities to meet the best from the world of coffee,” he said.
