Coffee roasters are adapting to fewer people wanting a barista-made brew

Sunday, 7 August 2022

More New Zealand speciality coffee roasters are jumping on the instant trend.

As fewer people head out to cafés for a cup of coffee, roasters are making it easier for people to have a tasty cup of joe at home.

Speciality coffee roaster Flight Coffee started an instant coffee line less than two months ago, after director and founder Nick Clark found fewer people were venturing out for a barista-made brew post-Covid.

On top of that, the increase in living costs and inflation has caused a massive uptake in home coffee consumption, he said.

“We're seeing more and more people buy home coffee machines and making it themselves.“

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In the past 10 years, Clark had seen the development and innovation of alternative ways to brew and make coffee at home and in cafés.

Flight Coffee’s instant range launched in June.

And although he said the consumption of whole bean coffee would likely always hold the crown, there had been strong growth in alternative consumption of high-quality coffee such as pods and instant.

“There is a move to the premiumisation of great quality coffee in general. We're seeing it with the capsule market and now with instant.”

Clark said it costs more to produce the instant due to the extra steps in the process.

David Huang says the market seems to indicate that a few major speciality coffee players are moving into the field of instant coffee.

“Our instant coffee range is the same coffee you'll find us selling as whole bean, highquality speciality that has been ethically sourced through our supply chain.”

A 2022 instant coffee market study found the global instant coffee market reached a value of US$12.7 billion (NZ$20.35b) in 2021.

The market is projected to reach US$17.3b by 2027, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate of 5.4% during 2022-2027.

David Huang, owner Society Coffee Roasters in Auckland and board member of the NZ Speciality Coffee Association, said the market seemed to indicate that a few major speciality coffee players were moving into the field of instant coffee.

The likely idea behind it was to capture mainstream food service sales such as the public who bought coffee from the supermarket instead of a local roaster.

“The analogy behind this movement is simple. General consumers do not want to spend time or invest money and effort into making coffee as it is still not embedded in NZ culture to prepare coffee freshly ourselves,” he said.

The pandemic and work from home movement had resulted in a fair increase in coffee consumption at home and in the workplace.

Huang said up to 70% of the coffee consumed in NZ was in the form of instant, while the fresh roasted bean and grind market only accounted for 30%.

“But there are well over 400 coffee roasters fighting in this over-saturated market.”

Huang said about five years ago barista-made coffee became a loss leading product and with the continued increased cost of raw material like green (raw) coffee bean, businesses needed to adapt, or put their prices up.

“The move to capture this massive general consumer market is inevitable and sensible from business strategy point of view, as product like instant and capsule coffee have a longer shelf life, a much bigger margin and easier to handle in transportation.”

Huang said only time would tell how NZ consumers would respond to the hype.