Bangalore, April 22: The Coffee Board sub-committee on domestic promotion has finalised a Rs 30 crore project for increasing domestic coffee consumption over a period of five years.It is expected that the project will be financed by funds created by cess on coffee exports. "Dhananjaya Kumar, member of parliament from Mangalore is likely to make a presentation before the union commerce ministry to this effect shortly," Consolidated Coffee Ltd senior general manager Harish Bijoor said. Consolidated Coffee Ltd is an arm of Tata Tea Ltd.
The domestic coffee consumption is shrinking at the rate of 4 per cent per annum. The focus is on increasing productivity and yields aimed at reaching the set objective of 3,00,000 tonne per annum by 2000 AD. At present, the total coffee production in the country is around 2,20,000 tpa with domestic consumption at 55,000 tpa and exports at 1,65,000 tpa.
A release said here on Monday the sub-committee on domestic promotion will be the apex body, which will supervise allwork related to the Rs 30 crore project. "A project manager will be appointed to manage the programme on a day-to-day basis. Works relating to market research, product research and advertising will be carried out by reputed agencies selected by the sub-committee on a specific project basis," Bijoor said.
The main objective of the project, according to Bijoor, one of the members of the sub-committee, is to arrest declining coffee bean consumption in the domestic market to achieve an annual growth of 10 per cent over a period of five years.
It targets a domestic consumption of 80,000 tonne by the year 2002 AD. The strategy addresses the following key tasks:
Educate consumers about the goodness of coffee. Encourage consumers to try the beverage and stay with it. Increase the appeal of coffee to the younger generation. Get back the franchise of lapsed users of coffee who have dropped out due to the recent trend of high prices of the beverage. Increase the depth ofconsumption of coffee in the traditional areas of South India. Generate the coffee-drinking habit in the rural areas. Make good coffee available.The project also includes plans for creating a network of "Coffee Board Certified" outlets at various centres in both traditional and non-traditional markets. These outlets would be trained to serve good quality coffee. These outlets will be used for arranging coffee-making demonstrations, coffee-recipe contests and setting up mobile-coffee vans, and satellite coffee-bar.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
