Room for improvement…

Scientists have come upon two magic words capable of making consumers believe a plain old cup of coffee tastes better and should be more expensive: “eco-friendly.”

 

In a series of experiments, researchers asked people to sample two identical cups of coffee brewed from the same batch of arabica beans using a “standard model coffee machine,” according to a report published Wednesday by the journal PLOS ONE. The researchers told the study volunteers that one of the cups was made with “eco-friendly” coffee beans and the other was not. Over and over, people who said they cared about the environment gave the “eco-friendly” coffee higher marks.

“With the right convictions, an ‘eco-friendly’ label is sufficient for a product to taste better than a non-labeled objectively identical alternative,” they wrote (italics are theirs).

The research team used a questionnaire to assess the value volunteers placed on recycling, sustainability and other environmentally themed activities. (Sample question: “Do you feel guilt when you buy non-eco-friendly alternatives?”) The responses were used to sort coffee-tasters into “high sustainability” and “low sustainability” groups.

In the first experiment, 74% of the high sustainability consumers said they preferred the “eco-friendly” coffee to the “not-eco-friendly” alternative and gave it higher ratings for taste. They also were willing to pay about 25% more for it. Meanwhile, the low sustainability volunteers were basically split between the two options and weren’t willing to pay extra for the goodie-goodie joe.

In the next experiment, volunteers were not told which cup of coffee was “eco-friendly” until after they had tasted both samples. In that case, the label didn’t influence their ratings for taste. However, high sustainability volunteers were still willing to pay more for the “eco-friendly” coffee even when they were told their preferred cup of coffee was of the “not-eco-friendly” variety.

“This finding indicates that their willingness to pay a premium for eco-friendly alternatives is – at least in part – based on altruistic (e.g., for the sake of the environment) rather than on more self-serving reasons (e.g., biased taste preferences),” according to the study.

But were they really being altruistic, or were they merely acting altruistic because they wanted to impress the researchers? To find out, the team conducted a third experiment.

This time, researchers told volunteers which coffee was “eco-friendly” and which one wasn’t before they took their first sip. Then, some volunteers reported their taste and price preferences directly to a researcher, while others were asked to write down their answers and leave them in a sealed box. If volunteers were motivated by peer pressure, those who gave their feedback in person would give the “eco-friendly” coffee higher ratings than those who gave their feedback anonymously.

But that’s not what happened. “Social desirability did not influence the eco-label effect on taste,” the researchers wrote.

This isn’t the first time scientists have demonstrated that lying to people about a product’s characteristics can influence how much they think they like it. For instance, in a study from the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, volunteers thought nutrition bars tasted worse when they were told that one of the ingredients was soy, even though it wasn’t. In another study by scientists from Caltech and Stanford, volunteers gave higher taste ratings to wine that they thought was more expensive.

So it looks like Juliet was wrong when she told Romeo that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” An “eco-friendly” rose would smell sweeter.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-eco-friendly-coffee-tastes-better-20131204,0,157226.story#ixzz2o3oVxIxB

Coffee for energy, fuel and a cleaner world

Coffee fuels millions of people’s mornings, but like other fuels it also comes with its own unique environmental issues. Coffee is one of the globe’s largest agricultural commodities, with about 8bn kilograms (more than 16bn lbs) grown annually worldwide. That’s a lot of coffee – and a lot of leftover coffee grounds, most of which ends up in landfills or, in a best-case scenario, as a soil conditioner in someone’s garden.

Many people seem to like the idea of turning something they throw out daily into a useful commodity. Companies such as Starbucks and Nestle, for example, are already putting used coffee grounds to work, while researchers believe that oil from coffee grounds could end up contributing tens of millions of liters of biodiesel to the global fuel supply.

Detergents, bioplastics and energy

Starbucks, which purchases nearly 400m pounds of coffee annually, is working to convert the grounds – along with bakery food waste – into laundry detergents, bioplastics and other products.

And food giant Nestlé, which has been incinerating coffee for energy for decades, is now also using it as a heat source to cook food products at 22 of its 28 coffee factories.

The idea of using coffee for energy beyond the morning buzz was “driven by the insight that coffee grounds have a fairly high calorific value”, says Claus Conzelmann, vice-president for safety, health and environmental sustainability at Nestlé. “In fact their fuel value is even slightly better than wood.”

Coffee grounds fulfill 100% of the “actual energy needs” at two of the company’s newest coffee factories, which opened this year in Vietnam and China, he says.

The company’s reuse of coffee should help the company reach its recently announced goal of zero waste at its 150 European factories by 2020. Incineration has kept some 800,000 tons of coffee grounds out of landfills each year, and also has helped Nestlé halve its carbon emissions per ton of product – and reduce its absolute energy usage by approximately 5% as production has grown more than 60%.

Caffeinated biodiesel

Meanwhile, a trio of scientists at the University of Cincinnati has been studying coffee grounds as a potential feedstock for biodiesel. The researchers found that used coffee grounds – which they collected from an on-campus Starbucks store – are 11% to 20% oil, by weight – roughly the same amount as palm oil, soybean oil and some other biodiesel feedstocks.

Biodiesel made from used coffee grounds would also help reduce waste – and potentially could help ease concerns about biofuels competing with the food supply. And coffee grounds are both plentiful and widely available, as well as “so cheap they’re almost free” says Mingming Lu, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Cincinnati involved in the research.

But turning coffee into biodiesel presents some additional challenges compared to the other feedstocks.

For one thing, the oil in coffee grounds is solid, not liquid. “The other oils, they are oils,” she says. “The ‘oil’ we’re extracting from … the coffee grounds, it might not be in oil form yet, since they are all solids, they are not liquid yet. But through the extractions, we are able to get this oil as well as convert it. So it becomes what we call a biodiesel precursor.”

Additional steps to extract and convert coffee oils into biofuel could result in higher cost, although Lu hopes the low cost of the grounds could offset production costs.

Preliminary results from the research also found that the oil extracted from the coffee grounds also meets the ASTM International D6751 standards for biodiesel fuel blends, which means it could be used for most biodiesel applications. It also has the potential to be cleaner-burning, according to the results.

Java-based air and water filters

Along with extracting oil from the grounds, the group also studied the possibility of converting the coffee grounds into activated carbon, which is used to filter and remove pollutants from air and water, as well as burning the leftover biomass as an alternative energy source, Lu says.

Students at her university’s business school are writing business cases, attending competitions and promoting the commercial potential of coffee grounds in the hopes of getting a patent and eventually creating an industry, she adds.

“When I talk to people about this idea, most people get excited to be able to use the waste coffee grounds, instead of throwing it away,” she says, “to find a good use for it. So that’s motivating enough for us to continue this research.”

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/grounds-sustainability-coffee-energy-fuel-pollution

 

 

‘Green Coffee’ carbon footprint rule launched for global coffee industry

Bill Bruce

2 Dec 2013

A new ‘Green Coffee’ CFP-PCR has been published, providing the first Product Category Rule for the calculation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from green coffee production.

The Green Coffee CFP-PCR rule was initiated by SAI Platform’s Coffee Working group members in collaboration with the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH).

This is the latest development from SAI Platform’s Coffee Working Group, meeting the need for a PCR in green coffee. Over an 18-month period, a wide range of stakeholders with interests in the sustainability of the coffee sector worldwide have come together to create a methodology that is truly globally applicable.

The new Green Coffee CFP-PCR will drive consistency in the application of GHG emissions calculations by reducing differences between individual studies and products, and harmonising methodological approaches. This will support the identification and adoption of genuine mitigation strategies.

It should also encourage behaviour change within the supply chain. While remaining scientifically robust, this CFP-PCR provides the necessary detail to empower informed (mitigation) decision-making, and even to reward positive practice.

Giacomo Celi, illycaffè, chair of the SAI Platform Coffee Working Group, said: “The guidelines for measuring the GHG emissions for green coffee are a great achievement for the coffee sector and as such ought to be adopted by everybody. These guidelines are the result of a global and transparent collaboration among numerous stakeholders of the coffee value chain.”

The Project Steering Group providing the leadership and working collaboratively in the development of this CFP- PCR were: illycaffé, Nestlé, Tchibo, Mondelez, DE Master Blenders 1753 and Lavazza, supported by the relevant sector standard-setting bodies (4C, Fairtrade International, Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified).

A technical working group comprising science and industry specialists from around the world who have experience in life cycle assessment and coffee agronomy, production systems, markets, consultancy, tool building and certification has ensured this CFP-PCR is not only scientifically robust, but can be delivered in the field with minimal barriers. An example of this is the establishment of allocation ratios for polyculture systems, where the group went beyond traditional PCR development requirements. SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Platform is the global initiative helping food and drink companies to achieve sustainable production and sourcing of agricultural raw materials.

Source: SAI Platform

PCCA – Update on Prop 65

Governor Brown signs the Gatto Bill (AB227) – A good first step in reasonable regulatory reform of California’s Proposition 65.


In September of 2012 the Pacific Coast Coffee Association appointed a Task Force to address the issues of Prop 65, the California law that has prompted a lawsuit involving coffee companies that do business in California. Plaintiffs are suing to demand that coffee be labeled with Prop 65 signs stating, “Chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and reproductive harm… are present in our coffee products…”

 

The Task Force has been working closely with the National Coffee Association (NCA) to develop strategies and a unified media policy concerning Prop 65. Along those lines both organizations wrote letters urging Governor Brown to sign AB227 – Proposition 65: Frivolous Lawsuits, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Mike Gatto and passed (after significant amending) by unanimous vote in both houses of the legislature. Assemblymember Gatto’s Legislative Director confided to Task Force members that coffee industry lawyers were key in drafting wording that included coffee shops in the protections offered by the bill. Though the coffee industry looks forward to more comprehensive reform to Prop 65 than AB 227 provides, we strongly believe this is a good first step that will protect thousands of coffee shop owners from frivolous lawsuits and unnecessary legal expenses. To be clear, however, this bill will have no effect on the current litigation.

The PCCA letter approved by the Board was faxed and mailed to the Governor’s office on October 2, 2013. The Governor signed the Bill on Saturday, October 5.

The PCCA will continue to work with the NCA and others in the coffee industry towards finding solutions to industry challenges set in motion by Proposition 65 and other regulatory efforts.

For more information on Prop 65 and what the PCCA Task Force is doing about it contact email hidden; JavaScript is required

North Sumatra – Mount Sinabung – High Level of Eruption Alert

 

 

The volcanic ash spewed by Mount Sinabung in Karo regency, North Sumatra, disrupted a number of flights from Kuala Namu International Airport in Deli Serdang regency on Sunday. In Bandung, the Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) increased the volcano’s status to “awas” (beware), the highest level of the four-level alert system. Air Asia and Susi Air postponed its flight to Penang, Malaysia, citing safety reason as volcanic ash has reached the airport. “The ash was quite thick. In the morning, all of our aircraft at Kuala Namu had been covered by ash,” he said on Sunday.“It is dangerous if we keep flying so we decided to temporarily halt our operations.” Mt. Sinabung erupted at about 9:45 p.m. Saturday, spewing volcanic ash as high as 10 kilometers.The ash reached the provincial capital of Medan, for the first time since Sinabung erupted in 2010. This caused Medan residents to panic and become concerned about the ash, which started to fall at 11:30 p.m. The affected areas included Medan Tuntungan, Medan Johor, Medan Selayang and even as far as Belawan. National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho estimated that another 15,000 villagers would come to evacuation centers following the status increase. “Currently there are 11,618 evacuees coming from 19 villages,” he said.

Rule Change Expected to Further Suppress Arabica Prices

For hundreds of years, coffee beans have made their way around the world in gunny sacks.

Now the use of these burlap bags, small enough to be hoisted by one person and a symbol of coffee’s artisanal character, is giving way to the modern demands of global trade.

IntercontinentalExchange Inc., ICE +2.52% home to the world’s most heavily traded coffee contract, last week said it would allow bean shipments to its certified warehouses to arrive in lined cargo containers, or “supersacks.” These plastic woven sacks often hold a metric ton of coffee, or enough beans to make about 125,000 shots of espresso.

To be delivered against ICE futures, coffee has had to arrive in specially marked bags. Those rules are changing. Above, a warehouse in Colombia. Bloomberg News

The move is expected to make it easier for big commodity traders and food companies to buy and sell coffee on the exchange. Cargo containers of loose beans already change hands in the physical-coffee market. But to be delivered against the ICE futures contract, arabica coffee beans generally must have arrived in the warehouse in bags that were marked at the beans’ origin, and be made of “sisal, henequen, jute, burlap or woven material having similar properties,” according to current rules.

At the same time, the loosening of packaging requirements could further suppress prices that already are weighed down by a glut of arabica beans, the variety used by roasters such as Starbucks Corp. SBUX +1.36% and Italy’s IllyCaffè SpA, traders and analysts say.

The new rule “is going to increase the amount available [in stockpiles],” said Jack Scoville, a vice president at brokerage Price Futures Group in Chicago. That likely would pressure prices even more, Mr. Scoville added.

Stockpiles of arabica are near 3½-year highs, caused largely by back-to-back record harvests in No. 1 grower Brazil. The glut has driven prices of arabica to their lowest levels since April 2009. Arabica futures rose 0.2% to $1.1525 a pound on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange on Wednesday.

Some market experts say that big incoming coffee shipments also could revive worries about the quality of the beans in ICE-certified warehouses, which could suppress futures prices relative to prices on the cash market. ICE tightened standards in late 2010 in response to concerns about the age, color and taste of coffee beans in storage amid a shortage of beans from Colombia, the world’s No. 2 arabica grower.

Many companies, from small Brooklyn, N.Y., roasters to Starbucks, have a policy of only using coffee beans that have traveled from the farm to roasting machines in gunny sacks.

Cheryl Kingan, head coffee buyer for Café Grumpy, a small roaster in Brooklyn, says she doesn’t receive coffee in a lined container.

“You wouldn’t know exactly what you’re getting,” Ms. Kingan says.

Critics of the new rule, which comes into force in late 2015, say it is more difficult to ensure that coffee beans originated from the country advertised if they are shipped in bulk and then rebagged. Certain beans, like those from Colombia, command a premium while the more plentiful, mechanically harvested Brazilian beans are traded at a discount to the benchmark futures contract.

“I’d rather see [the coffee] arrive in bags,” says Bob Phillips, a trader at Caturra Coffee Corp., a coffee importer based in Elmsford, N.Y. Referring to ICE’s rule change, Mr. Phillips added, “I don’t think it’s a wise idea because someone will find a way to misrepresent [the coffee]. Beans don’t have a stamp on them.”

ICE says the decision will help bring it into line with a growing trend of big, bulk deliveries of beans. Global coffee exports rose by 27% between 2002 and 2012, to 113.2 million bags, according to the International Coffee Organization.

Other coffee traders are defending the change.

“It’s really just reflecting what is going on in the physical [trading] world,” said a person involved in the decision-making process. “Welcome to the ’90s.”

J.M. Smucker Co., the maker of Folgers, and Kraft Foods Group Inc., which produces Maxwell House coffee, say they receive coffee shipments in big containers.

Even traders of some of the world’s most sought-after coffee say worries about quality are overblown. Companies that take coffee that meets the exchange’s minimum standards don’t have particularly high expectations, says Andi Trindle Mersch, a trader at Atlantic Specialty Coffee.

“Supersacks are quite acceptable for quality as far as I know,” Ms. Mersch says, adding that only about 5% of the coffee the company buys comes in large supersacks. Atlantic Specialty Coffee is a unit of Ecom Agroindustrial Corp., one of the world’s biggest coffee traders.

While the exchange is expanding the options to bring coffee to the warehouse, ICE isn’t changing how buyers can get it out. Under the new system, warehouse employees still will sort and bag the coffee in natural-fiber bags before handing it to the exchange’s graders. The coffee still must pass the exchange’s muster before it joins the certified stockpiles.

Still, many in the coffee market believe the really good beans always travel in small packages.

Costa Rica, which is famed for its coffee beans nourished by volcanic, mineral-rich soil, exports 90% of its crop in smaller bags, said Edgar Rojas, the deputy director of the Coffee Institute of Costa Rica, a government body that oversees the industry.

The bulk shipments “are cheaper” but smaller bags make “it easier to control the quality,” Mr. Rojas says.

For the same reason, Starbucks says it only uses gunny sacks.

“Starbucks only receives its coffee in unit-level bags,” said Starbucks spokeswoman Alisha Damodaran, referring to the industry standard bag that holds 60 kilograms, about 132 pounds. “It is an integral component to traceability and quality assurance.”

 

 

By

Leslie Josephs
Oct. 9, 2013 4:34 p.m. ET

PNG Landslide cuts off highlands

THE Highlands Highway has been cut off at Daulo Pass again.
Continuous rain in the region triggered another massive landslip at Daulo Pass on Monday night, cutting off the four highlands provinces.
It blocked a mountain creek and created a dam which is threatening to burst, posing further risks to people down the valley and further damages to the highway.
It is a nightmare for trucking firms who only this week raised concerns on the high operating costs with frequent landslips along the highway and increased fuel prices.
The Highlands Highway is the only road link between the five highlands provinces and the coastal towns of Lae and Madang.
Landslides and slips along the highway has affected businesses including the oil and gas fields in Southern Highlands and Porgera gold mine, the travelling public and PMV operators.
PMVs loaded with passengers destined for Lae and Goroka from Mt Hagen offloaded their passengers on the Chimbu side of the slip and passengers walked across to get on buses on the Goroka side to continue their journey. This has a greater impact on businesses and also us despatching coffee for shipment.

 

Coffee Falls to Five-Year Low on Growing Supplies

Arabica coffee fell to the lowest in almost five years in New York on ample supplies from Brazil and Colombia, the biggest growers of the beans

Brazil’s crop will be a record for a year in which trees enter the lower-yielding half of a two-year cycle, broker INTL FCStone Inc. (INTL) said in a report e-mailed yesterday. Conditions for the development of next year’s harvest appear to be “good,” it said. Farmers in Colombia will reap 10.6 million to 10.8 million bags in 2013, exceeding a target of 10 million bags, the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation said. Central America started harvesting last month. A bag weighs 132 pounds.

“The global coffee harvest kicked into high gear in Colombia, Central America and Brazil,” FCStone said. “The Brazilian ‘off-year’ crop is expected to come in a new record high and is one of the reasons prices are struggling.”

Arabica for December delivery fell 0.3 percent to $1.034 a pound by 5:57 a.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York after dropping earlier today to $1.031, the lowest for a most-active contract since Dec. 5, 2008. Prices are probably heading for $1, FCStone said. Robusta coffee for January delivery fell 1 percent to $1,468 a metric ton on NYSE Liffe in London.

5,000 Cuban volunteers recruited to help with coffee harvest

HAVANA, Oct. 22– More than 5,000 students and volunteers will be mobilized to help with coffee harvest in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, Cuba’s main producing area, to catch up with the harvest schedule, the daily Juventud Rebelde reported Tuesday, quoting an official.

Agricultural vice-delegate Manuel Arzuaga said that in the first two weeks of October, just over 240,000 cans (about 457 tons) of coffee beans were picked, representing only 32 percent of the total.

“October is vital for the harvest, because it is the month when the grain reaches its maturation peak,” he said.

He added that the government plans to increase this season’s harvest, which can reach 5,700 tons, by 34 percent compared to the previous season.

Coffee is Cuba’s main economic crop. The sector has suffered an exodus of experienced harvesters, organization problems and bureaucracy in recent years.

Since President Raul Castro took office in 2008, Cuba has tried to increase domestic coffee production as high coffee consumption costs Cuba about 40 million US dollars a year due to the purchases at the international market.

Sector authorities expect to increase coffee output to 15,000 tons in 2016 although the figure is still insufficient compared with the 24,000 tons needed to cover domestic consumption and export.corey

Goldman Sachs Cuts Arabica Coffee Price Forecasts by 7.7% on Weather

 

Goldman Sachs Cuts Arabica Coffee Forecasts by 7.7% on Weather

By Isis Almeida – Oct 18, 2013 3:23 AM PT

 

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its price forecasts for arabica coffee traded in New York by 7.7 percent, citing favorable weather and the biggest stockpiles of the variety favored by Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) in five years.

 

The beans traded on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange will be at $1.20 a pound in three, six and 12 months, the bank said in a report e-mailed today. That’s down from last month’s forecast for $1.30 a pound. Arabica coffee futures fell 20 percent this year on signs of bigger harvests in leading producer Brazil and Colombia, the second-biggest grower of the variety.

 

“Arabica coffee prices continued to decline last month on larger than expected Colombian production and favorable weather for the upcoming crop in Brazil,” Damien Courvalin, an analyst at the bank in New York, wrote in the report.

 

Futures are heading for a third year of declines, the longest losing streak since 1993. The commodity is the fourth worst performer this year in the Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 raw materials, with only gold, silver and corn down by more. Stockpiles at the end of this season will be 30.5 million bags, the highest since 2008-09, estimates the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A bag of coffee weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).

 

Coffee prices could rebound if there are further cuts to production in Central America, where leaf rust disease has hit crops, or if funds decide to close out bets on lower prices, Goldman said. Large and small speculators excluding index funds have been betting on lower prices since 2011, data from the U.S. Futures Trading Commission compiled by Bloomberg showed.

 

Arabica coffee for December deliver was little changed at $1.1475 a pound on ICE by 5:53 a.m. in New York.