Andrea Illy on Fair Trade, barista training, and coffee pricing
Posted by TheShot on 22 Sep 2011 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Fair Trade, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee
Media profiles of Illycaffè‘s Andrea Illy are commonplace. But this one from today’s The Guardian (UK) is better than most: Andrea Illy: family businessman who’s raising the bar for premium coffee | Business | The Guardian.
For one, Mr. Illy talks about the importance of pricing and brand positioning. Regardless of what you think of Illy coffee, offering discount promotions and specials is incongruous with establishing it as a luxury item. You don’t lure customers with a come-on for a cheap fix; you lure them because they want to treat themselves. Discounts cheapen that image and position you for the coffee misery market.
He also notes how Illycaffè ensures that resellers of its coffee have the right equipment and are making it properly, retraining staff if necessary. While this is critical for the perceived quality of any roaster whose coffee beans are served in third-party establishments, our data suggests that Illycaffè has fallen far short of living up to these ideals — at least in the U.S.
Back in 2009 we made a comparison of our espresso scores among cafés with common machines, common roasters, or common chain brands, and we used the standard deviation of these scores as a measure of inconsistency. Illy coffee rated much more inconsistently than different Starbucks chain stores — which are notorious themselves for their very poor consistency.
“[Fairtrade] is about paying a higher price for the same goods” — Andrea Illy
Consistent with an interview four years ago, Mr. Illy finishes the article with a couple of good contrarian, somewhat incendiary quotes about Fair Trade. For one: “[Fairtrade] is about paying a higher price for the same goods. That is against the laws of supply and demand.” Another: “consumers pay more for Fairtrade because they want to feel good. It’s about solidarity not quality. Why not give to the Red Cross?”
All of which echoes many of our thoughts about the rather trendy role of “Corporate Social Responsibility” in business today, where consumers seem to prefer to outsource their charitable giving to third-party businesses rather than donate directly themselves. As we always ask: don’t tell us you’re going to donate 10% of the sales proceeds to charity. Give us that 10% off, and let us take responsibility and decide who and how much to donate with the extra savings. You’re my coffee roaster, not my Foundation.
1 Comment »
Unfortunately, it is quite easy to go with the flow in our capitalist society. Part of the reason is due to the influence of Media and our public obedience to the latest interest. Most of the time money talks and there is not one person I know that can claim that they have not purchased something for super cheap at a super-mart. How many people think about why it’s super cheap? It sure as hell is not advertised. How about this. “Our proceeds go to our shareholders and we all bank off of slave labor.” Now I get to keep my 10% and invest in saving puppies in my neighborhood.” If any trend should spread throughout any culture like coffee it sure as hell should be helping people thrive where the best coffee in the world is grown.