The India International Coffee Festival 2012, organised from January 18-20, 2012, by the India Coffee Trust, an industry body in collaboration with the Coffee Board of India to promote coffee consumption in India, at New Delhi, received good response with over 400 participants from all over the globe in attendance.
The 3-day event held for the first time in New Delhi, apart from India, recorded participation from Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, the United States, Nigeria, Kenya, Norway, Sweden, and Belgium.
The event was inaugurated by union minister for commerce Anand Sharma, with Roberio Oliveira Silva, executive director, International Coffee Organisation (ICO), as the guest of honour. The event was sponsored Cafe Coffee Day, Tata Coffee, Nestle, Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Lavazza.
At the inaugural session, Anil Bhandari, chairman, India Coffee Trust, felt that the current mission of spreading coffee consumption all over the country would be a signal success.
Jawaid Akhtar, chairman, Coffee Board of India, attributed the rise in domestic coffee consumption in the country to the efforts of each member of the coffee fraternity in India who worked in tandem to spread coffee drinking across the country.
“Over the past few years, coffee has transitioned from being a traditional beverage consumed mainly in south India, to a beverage with national presence, consumed in several forms and retail formats. Between 2003 and 2008, coffee consumption has grown in the non-south regions at 42% annually, while it has grown at 3.5% per annum in the southern states,” he added.
The Coffee Board is actively involved in the promotion of beverage in non-traditional markets and training to develop entrepreneurs supporting movement up the value chain in roasting, grinding and packaging segments by subsidy support to prospective entrepreneurs and self-help groups and collectives among others. “The Coffee Board has been nurturing coffee industry for the past seven decades through its various activities like research, extension, export and domestic promotion and allied activities aimed at supporting coffee-growers across the country,” Akhtar stated.
The event was a combination of a conference, exhibition and workshops and included a session on Cooking with Coffee, conducted by noted chef and restaurateur Mark Sayers from Australia. The workshops were aimed at providing participants and prospective coffee professionals and entrepreneurs, an enriching and interactive learning opportunity with a special focus on roasting & grinding, and different techniques of brewing, cooking with coffee and were conducted by specialised and experienced instructors.
Mark Sayers, who demonstrated his signature recipes at the event, said that in India, with its diverse culture, the country saw its people willing to experiment with food menus. Coffee, as a sipping drink, was also being welcomed as a food ingredient world over, he said.
Roberio Oliveira Silva, executive director, ICO, said, “Coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world after oil with an estimated value of over $80 billion annually. Through ICO, the industry has enhanced bilateral and multilateral trade between the producer and consumer countries. With growing demand for coffee in emerging markets like India, the ICO is enabling countries to increase production by assisting in deploying better reproduction technologies, market diversification, linkages/integration through partnerships and investments in research and development.”
source: http://www.fnbnews.com / Top News / by Nandita Vijay, Bangalore / Saturday, January 21st, 2012
