Nearly 19 million Australians consume at least one coffee a day, according to the ‘Australia Coffee Market’ report from Market Reports World in December 2021. This equates to national consumption of more than 37 million kilograms of coffee a year.
“It’s widely known that Australia has the best coffee culture in the world,” says Hunt and Brew Senior Brand Manager Emily Creer. “The caffeine ritual is so ingrained in the Australian way of life that it’s part of our daily routine and important enough to walk further to ensure it meets our expectations.”
Despite the extent of Aussies’ coffee drinking and the fact that coffee was first grown in Australia in the 19th century, only about 600 tonnes of coffee is produced annually in this country.
Last month, Hunt and Brew announced that the beans for its new ‘Australia’ cold brew coffee would be sourced from far north Queensland. With 10 tonnes of local specialty grade Arabica coffee beans to be sourced from the Atherton Tablelands region each year, a distribution deal with Woolworths will make the company one of the largest buyers of Australian grown coffee beans.
“We wanted to bring Australian coffee lovers Australian grown beans, so we hunted the globe and actually found the finest single origin coffee beans within our home country,” Ms Creer said.
With the absence of major pests and diseases in northern Queensland, the reduced need for pesticides and other environmentally unfriendly treatments has led to cleaner, quality coffee beans.
Ms Creer says the mountainous region of the Atherton Tablelands, reaching more than 1000m above sea level, “makes for the perfect coffee terroir”.
She adds that Hunt and Brew is “delighted” with its arrangement to source coffee beans from the Howe Farming Group, which owns numerous farms across the region.
“We know that with the quantity we’re buying, Hunt and Brew will put Australian specialty coffee beans on the map,” she said.
“Certainly, the pandemic has prompted Australian businesses and consumers to source locally. We set ourselves a challenge to hunt for Australian coffee beans, and we were ecstatic to discover world-class coffee beans being grown in our own backyard.”
Read more about Hunt and Brew in the latest issue of Convenience World.
