Brazil's coffee consumption up 3 percent

Brazil guzzled almost 20 million bags of coffee in the 12-month period through April, the roasters' association ABIC said on Friday, a rise of about 3 percent that is unlikely to be achieved again in the next 12 months. The world's top coffee producer is also the world's No 2 consumer, drinking the equivalent of roughly 40 percent of what it produces. The local coffee industry expects the country could eventually overtake the top consumer, the United States.
"Brazilians are consuming more cups of coffee per day and diversifying the ways they drink it during the day, with espresso coffees, cappuccinos and other combinations with milk, on top of filter coffee drunk at home," said Marcio Reis Maia, ABIC's director of Research and Information.
These new formats are also boosting demand for higher quality arabicas as a burgeoning middle class acquires a taste for better brews and splashes out on espresso machines made for the home that are now all the rage in Brazil's chic shopping malls. That extra demand will not go unnoticed by the global coffee market as roasters drain stocks and reconfigure blends to cope with the scarcity of high quality arabicas, due in part to a run of poor harvests from prestigious grower Colombia.
Consumption growth is likely to slow in the near term however, ABIC said, forecasting it would rise 2.2 percent to 20.4 million 60-kg bags in the subsequent 12-month period. The association gave a separate estimate for 2013 consumption of 21 million bags. ABIC said the increasing variety of drinks available for consumption at home might be the reason its initial forecasts for a 3.5 percent increase in coffee consumption in the 2011/12 period were not realised.
Brazil is in the middle of harvesting a coffee crop estimated officially at 50.45 million bags, up sharply from the 43.5 million bags gathered last year on account of the biennial cycle that causes output to rise and fall from year to year. Arabica futures traded on New York's ICE exchange were trading 0.45 percent lower on Friday at $1.6570 per lb but soared to a 34-year high above $3 per lb in 2011 during Brazil's smaller harvest due to tight supplies and a deluge of fund cash.
ABIC data put per capita consumption at 6.18 kg of coffee bean equivalent, or 4.94 kg of roasted coffee per year, an increase of 1.2 percent from the prior 12 months. Though Brazil's consumption ranks comparatively high, Scandinavian countries led the ranks of per capita consumption, drinking 9 kg or more.