The Re:co Symposium, held in Portland last April, gave a clear sense of specialty coffee, and all the challenges and opportunities that come with it. We asked the curatorial director of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), Jenn Rugolo, to tell us more about the work the SCA is doing, as it prepares for Host2023 with a series of initiatives on the hot topics of the moment.

“Our goal at this year's Re:co Symposium was to help participants see some of the smaller, more imperceptible changes happening in the world around us as they are reflected within our industry in order to sense the emerging future, and respond to it, rather than simply waiting for change to happen. We began zooming in from the very broadest of views – what it means to really sit in a place of ‘not knowing’ (Dr. Vaughn Tan), how the next generation(s) might engage with coffee (Andrea Hernández), and ideas about ‘value’ and ‘quality’ (Prof. Ted Fischer) – to a more focused view of coffee. We explored some of these changes in the retail space, where an increasingly diverse audience, along with consumer demand for unique-to-me products (Miranda Caldwell) and fairness attributes (Mel Bandler) are beginning to change the literal and metaphorical landscape of coffee retail around the world. We also broached the question of a green coffee identity standard offered a view of the cold coffee options at the forefront of broadening coffee’s consumer base; explored the increasing diversity of coffee’s use across consumer packaged goods and ready-to-drink options.

What coffee trends have you identified?

Many of the trends we've tracked in coffee over the past few years—diversity in taste preference, interest in sustainability or "fairness" attributes, increasing home consumption, and new approaches to convenience offerings—continue to grow. In many cases, we see these reflected in a more general trend, across industries, where consumers are inclined to reflect their personal values or identity through their consumption choices. One of our Re:co speakers this year, trend forecaster Andrea Hernández of Snaxshot, refers to this phenomenon as "snax-as-signaler." Another way of viewing this—as was raised by two other Re:co speakers, Bill Durant (Exverus Media) and Mel Bandler (Bath & Body Works)--would be that consumers also often view their choices as a way to contribute to the future they wish to see (i.e., making more "conscious" choices as a way of navigating the larger sense of not-knowing and perception of helplessness around larger structural issues like climate change).

What are the expectations for 2023 as regards production?

The International Coffee Organization always has the most up-to-date forecasts and expectations for production. The April 2023 Coffee Report and Outlook, is a new bi-annual report that provides updated snapshots, based on a new methodology, of the years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 in coffee production, consumption, and outlook. From that report, and based on what we hear from producers in the specialty community, we will see a continuation of some of the macro trends of the past decade (or more) in 2023, including high production volumes from Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia – the leaders at the global level – and ongoing growth from Honduras and Uganda, which are two countries that have dramatically increased their investment in coffee production in recent years and have become regional powerhouses as a result. Other notable trends in production in specialty coffee include the proliferation of experimental post-harvest processes (for example, different variations on the “honey” process) and interest in specialty Robusta from countries that have traditionally grown the Arabica species.

Climate change and logistical challenges: where do we stand?

Both of these are indeed challenges, and large, structural ones at that—but SCA believes they're also opportunities to build new approaches/models or find innovative solutions. believing that we have the capacity to find potential solutions or reframe challenges as opportunities is an important first step to actually finding and building them.

In terms of logistics, there is good news: some of the pressure that coffee supply chains experienced in 2020  has abated and coffee is moving around the world more smoothly nowadays. It also has to be recognized, however, that while transportation challenges have abated, financial pressure has intensified, which means that traders and buyers are struggling to commit to volumes and qualities of coffee that represent any kind of unusual risk for their companies.