This April, North America’s largest gathering of specialty coffee professionals, the Specialty Coffee Expo (SCAA) took place in Boston, Massachusetts. The largest trade show for two years, SCAA 2022 featured over 420 exhibiting companies and welcomed over 10,000 attendees.
OUR TEAM WERE THERE
Lending Managers from Central and South America, Marco Garcia and Jhonny Cabellos attended the three-day event to meet customers face to face for the first time since the pandemic.
Marco and Jhonny met with over 20 of our coffee customers during the event. Marco said: “This is the largest coffee event worldwide, therefore it is very useful for us to catch up with existing customers and with industry trends. I was able to meet with 10 customers, and two potential customers and get acquainted with efforts to digitalise the specialty coffee supply chain in the region. It was also great to start grasping a sense of normality after the pandemic.”
WHO WE MET
Marco continued: “The expo was especially useful for our customer Sacacli, a coffee co-operative located in Jinotega, Nicaragua. After two years of not attending a Coffee Expo, the co-operative able to showcase its recent ROC (Regenerative Organic Certification) certification, which is aligned with soil health, animal welfare and justice for agricultural workers; to strengthen relationships with new coffee roasters in the US.
THE COFFEE SECTOR
As well as meeting with customers, Jhonny and Marco heard about the latest developments in the international coffee market. Our team reported that key takeaways were:
- The demand for Fairtrade coffee has increased, following high market prices, which exceed the Fairtrade Minimum Price (FMP).
- The Peruvian coffee harvest has been positive due to high coffee prices in Colombia.
- Brazil has not yet recovered its 2020 production levels due to the strong frost suffered last year.
- Nicaragua is experiencing export delays. This is since the country’s import level decreased and there is a lack of incoming containers.
- There are advances in the digitalisation of the coffee supply chain by various stakeholders including in-house developments by our customers.
HOW WAS IT BEING BACK AT AN EVENT?
Reflecting on the event, Marco said: “It was great to be back at a face-to-face event. I think our customers were happy to be meeting up in person after two years of virtual communication.”
Jhonny said: “This fair has been a success with respect to the number of assistants and it has been very good to be able to meet again with our customers and potential coffee customers that we haven't seen for a couple of years. I am sure that the information collected on these days allows us to have a better knowledge about the development of the present harvest in South America countries.”
