Bitter feelings over coffee bean prices

By Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff, 11/18/2003

In Dean Cycon's mind, the low prices that US coffee roasters pay to struggling farmers amount to a lot more than a hill of beans. That's why, from his small coffee company in the Central Massachusetts town of Orange, Cycon is roiling the trendy world of upscale coffee sellers with allegations of hypocrisy and exploitation of impoverished growers around the globe.

It's a fight in which Cycon's company, Dean's Beans, took out a full-page magazine ad that asked liberal icon Paul Newman, without consulting him, to pressure coffee roasters such as Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee to buy more beans at higher "fair trade" prices.

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Higher Quality Products Fueling Growth in the $19 Billion Coffee Market

NEW YORK, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ --

Americans will spend $19 billion on coffee in 2003, but an increasing share of those sales will be from packaged ready-to-drink coffee products and whole bean sales, according to the newly released study The U.S. Market for Coffee and Ready-to-Drink Coffee, published by market researcher Packaged Facts.
Starbucks and the premium coffee purveyors have driven other coffee marketers to introduce competitive high-quality whole coffee bean products, which are often classified as specialty or premium coffee. Indeed, the most new product activity in coffee is in the category of packaged whole bean coffees, which come in a variety of roasts, blends, and flavors, the report notes.

"Today's coffee isn't your father's cup o' Joe," said Don Montuori, Acquisitions Editor for Packaged Facts. "Thanks to companies such as Starbucks, today's consumer has a higher coffee education, and has become conditioned to embrace a $4 latte or $12 pound of organic beans. And the refrigerated coffee drinks have created new markets for coffee, particularly among younger consumers who might not otherwise drink a standard cup of coffee."

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