COFFEE SUPPLIERS/ROASTERS
Making a
splash
Extracts, ethics and emerging alternatives – five coffee trends you can expect to see in 2024. Lincoln & York have more than 25 years of roasting expertise, enjoying global success as a private label coffee manufacturer – behind hundreds of blends. Coffee buyer, Chris Tough, offers up some invaluable insight. While the future is traditionally read in tea leaves, we’re looking to coffee to make our predictions. Despite the cost of living continuing to squeeze household budgets, there have been no signs of an impact on consumer coffee buying habits, with the out of home (OOH) market attracting an additional 1.56 million consumers since last year. 1 It’s with this level of resilience and an ambitious outlook for further growth that we look forward to an exciting future. 1 BREWING GROWTH IN CASCARA Recently declassified as a novel food, cascara is now more widely available as a ready-to-drink product and is set for expansion in 2024. With its potential to strengthen the coffee trade economy, helping farmers reduce waste and add income, this byproduct which was once thrown away is set to take centre stage. Often called the coffee cherry, cascara is the skin and pulp of the coffee fruit and offers great potential to
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decrease carbon footprint, while also providing an exciting new option for consumers to enjoy. In terms of flavour, cascara’s unique taste lies somewhere between coffee and tea. Not as strong or rich as coffee, it’s full of fruity, slightly floral and earthy notes, packed with antioxidants and significantly less caffeine than coffee. With its sustainability and health benefits, plus a novel taste profile, cascara is one to watch.
2 COFFEE EXTRACTS Offering the ideal solution for efficiency and speed of service, 2024 could be the year that more widespread use of coffee extracts and coffee concentrates come to the fore. While there are many iterations of coffee concentrates and different methods of extraction, all produce a concentrated essence which can be used in cold drinks to avoid brewing and chilling an espresso for every serve. The popularity of cold coffee shows no signs of cooling off, with the iced market valued at £178.9m, up 37%,2 meaning suppliers across OOH and retail are looking for quicker ways to create iced coffees and RTD products, including dairy-free alternatives. The use of coffee extracts not only
speeds up service and guarantees consistency of flavour; it also enables businesses to grow and scale at speed, meaning its potential goes way beyond just cold coffee. Its a huge opportunity. 3 A YEAR FOR EDUCATION With coffee bean sales up +14.3% since last year, this trend is set to continue, with support from the grocery sector in educating consumers. As 52% of UK coffee drinkers still opt for instant, we are seeing growth in other options, such as upgrading at-home coffee in search of a fresher, fuller flavour. 3 To encourage this shift, retailers may take inspiration from the wine aisles. This could mean increased displays and merchandising in store to educate consumers about origins, roasts and flavour profiles, helping shoppers tailor their purchases, as well as experiment. A deeper understanding of coffee will go beyond whether they simply like the flavour or not. 4 FOOTPRINT FOCUS Sustainably sourced coffee is by no means a new phenomenon, but we expect consumers to become even more carbon footprint conscious, with 63% actively looking for sustainably sourced coffee options.4
CAFÉ LIFE | THECAFELIFE.CO.UK
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08/02/2024 17:31