By 7 Miles Coffee Company Trade Marketing Manager Ben Irvine.
With a new coffee trend doing the rounds on social media continually, it can be hard to separate the genuine, long-term opportunities from the trashy and gimmicky fads.
Here’s my pick of new or overlooked coffee products and recipes that I think are perfectly suited for convenience businesses.
Drip coffee bags
These single use, ready to brew bags are gaining popularity fast as a convenient alternative to traditional coffee brewing.
Drip coffee bags have been big in Japan since the ‘90s, but are now taking off in Australia as filter coffee becomes more popular among millennials.
The bags themselves contain ground coffee, a paper filter and cardboard ‘ears’ that sit over the lip of the cup. To make a cup, the user simply places the bag on the cup and pours water
from the kettle over the ground coffee. Once the water has filtered through, the paper is removed, and they’re left with a tasty cup of filter coffee.
Over the next few years, I think we’ll see this format become increasingly popular as a convenience grab and go item for time poor coffee drinkers who want a quick way to make a cup at home, in the office or while travelling.
Specialty instant coffee
For many, instant coffee is synonymous with the cheap and nasty dust their parents used to drink. However, despite the reputation, some leading coffee roasters are changing perceptions by adding high quality, specialty grade instant coffees to their retail range.
While the product itself looks like mainstream instant, the big difference is in the quality of coffee the roasters begin with. By starting with specialty grade coffee and roasting it more lightly to preserve more of the coffee’s origin characteristics, the difference in taste compared with a supermarket instant is immediately noticeable.
Of course, these higher grade coffees come at a price, so this type of instant isn’t going to compete directly with mainstream brands any time soon. However, for the growing group of
consumers looking for high quality coffee with instant convenience, these products have serious retail potential for coming years.
Read the article in full for more coffee products in the November issue of Convenience World.
