Yunnan coffee was “sale cheaply”: No. 1 in the industry in the country, but it became a cheap supplier of multinational capital

Yunnan Coffee, only if it climbs out of the low-end position of the industrial chain, can it be promising.

In 2020, when the epidemic hits, many domestic industries have suffered major blows.
The strange thing is that the epidemic has not affected the layout of the capital tycoons in the coffee consumer market:

McDonald’s McDonald’s McCoffee plans to invest 2.
5 billion yuan in the next three years to open more than 4,000 stores in mainland China;

Starbucks opened 581 stores in 2020, and opened 259 new stores in the fourth quarter alone, setting a new record;

Sinopec also entered the coffee track, and joined hands with Lian Coffee to launch Easy Coffee, and enter the gas station consumption channel on a large scale;

Following the Forbidden City, Tongrentang, a time-honored Chinese brand, also opened a new coffee shop "Knowing Health", selling health-preserving coffee across borders in the form of a Chinese medicine healthy dining experience;

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The coffee consumer market is popular, but behind it lies the pain of the Chinese coffee industry being sold at a low price.

Yunnan's coffee industry

When it comes to China's coffee industry, many people may look dazed.

But if you ask this question in Yunnan, the locals can talk freely, because the coffee industry in Yunnan is roughly equivalent to the coffee industry in China.

Why do you say that?

Let's first look at a set of data.

Yunnan's coffee planting area accounts for more than 99% of the country; correspondingly, Yunnan's coffee bean output also dominates the country, with 150,000 tons per year.

Looking at the export trade, about 95% of raw coffee beans produced in Yunnan are sold abroad, exported to 55 countries and regions including the European Union, the United States, Japan, and South Korea, earning 1 billion yuan in foreign exchange each year.

Picture source: Yunnan Coffee Association official website

Our country is vast and rich in resources, so why do we only grow coffee in Yunnan?

Coffee is a very fastidious economic crop: to stay in an area where spring is all year round, the temperature is best at 18-25 degrees; the humidity must also be moderate, and the annual precipitation is 1500-2259 mm; the altitude cannot be high or low, 200 -2000 meters; sufficient sunshine and good drainage of the soil.
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In short, coffee trees have high requirements for the growth environment.

The natural environment of Yunnan just meets these conditions, and sometimes it has a favorable geographical location, which is very suitable for the growth of coffee trees.

But for the coffee industry to take root, these two points alone are not enough.
There must be a suitable historical opportunity.
It is human harmony.

Speaking of it, the industrialization of Yunnan coffee was set sail by the east wind established by the People's Republic of China.

The Chinese had no habit of drinking coffee.
In 1952, during the Sino-Soviet honeymoon, in order to meet the needs of the Soviet Union, the government sought coffee plantations in China.

From the end of Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic of China, missionaries introduced coffee trees in Yunnan.
The geographical environment was also suitable, so Baoshan began to grow coffee industrially.

At that time, most of Yunnan coffee was exported to the Soviet Union to earn foreign exchange, and Yunnan coffee ushered in its first development opportunity.

The distribution range of Yunnan coffee producing areas

It's a pity that the good times didn't last long.
Because of the later Sino-Soviet ties, Yunnan coffee could not be exported.

The coffee beans were nowhere to be found, and many coffee farmers cut down the coffee trees and planted other crops.
As a result, the coffee industry in Yunnan stagnated.

At the beginning of the reform and opening up, in Yunnan, only the roadsides of the Myanmar-Burma Highway and the courtyards of individual farms could still be seen in the shadows of coffee trees.

However, this does not prevent the blessed Yunnan from entering the sight of multinational companies.

South America has always been the main producer of coffee.
In order to reduce the risk of natural disasters and suppress the price of coffee raw materials, the global instant coffee hegemon, Nestlé, intends to open up new coffee plantations around the world.

In the 1980s, Yunnan Pu'er became the first choice.

Under the impetus of Nestlé, the coffee industry in Yunnan has re-developed.

Nestlé first set up a purchasing station in Pu'er in 1988 to help farmers introduce coffee; three years later, it began to purchase coffee beans from coffee farmers; in 1992, in order to better guide the local coffee farming industry, Nestlé established a coffee agronomy service in Yunnan Province unit.

Nescafe coffee experts instruct coffee planting in the agronomic service department

In more than 30 years, Nestlé has sent 6 generations of foreign experts and a team of Chinese experts to Yunnan, trained and helped more than 36,500 farmers, and a total of more than 20,000 people have registered to participate in the field management, processing technology and the most advanced technology provided by Nestlé.
Training on good agricultural practices.

At present, Nestlé has nearly 1,400 suppliers in Yunnan, of which small farmers account for about 89%, and the annual purchase volume is about 10,000 tons.

Nescafe Coffee Center in Pu'er, Yunnan

Can't sell the price

There are good times and good times, and Yunnan Coffee has also experienced brilliance.

In 2011, Yunnan green coffee beans were sold at a "luxury" purchase price of more than 25 yuan per kilogram.

Although there is still a lot of gap compared to the 40 yuan purchase price of coffee beans at the same level abroad, this is already the peak of Yunnan coffee's glory.

Unexpectedly, the market quickly took a turn for the worse.
Since then, the purchase price of coffee beans has been sluggish.

Coffee is a typical international traded commodity, and its price is greatly affected by futures, and it is easily controlled by capital.

In November 2017, the price of coffee futures that fell all the way was only 107 cents per pound, which is equivalent to 14.
3 yuan per kilogram in RMB, which has fallen below the 14.
67 yuan per kilogram of coffee farmers in Yunnan.

Sure enough, the purchase price of shelled coffee beans (coffee rice) in the second year made it impossible for coffee farmers to recover the cost.
Many farmers cut down coffee trees and planted other crops.

The benchmark price of coffee purchases on an exchange in 2018

The prices of low-end raw materials continue to fall, and the prices of high-end processed specialty coffee are not high.

In 2018, the market price of high-quality, medium-roasted coffee beans in the Huaguoshan producing area in Yunnan was about 69 yuan per half pound, while the price of the same medium-roasted porsa coffee beans was 118 yuan per half pound, which is slightly worse in Nicaragua.
Coffee beans also cost 90 yuan per half pound.

Yunnan coffee has been in a low price for a long period of time because of its own reasons.

First, the low-end planting layout.

The varieties of coffee planted in Yunnan are relatively single, and the whole is low-end.
Most of them are the Catimor subspecies of the Arabica coffee species.

This variety is disease-tolerant and high-yielding, but has a slightly astringent taste and low discrimination.
It can generally only be used as a raw material for instant coffee.

At present, ordinary commercial coffee beans in Yunnan account for 85% of the total output, high-grade commercial coffee beans account for 10%, and specialty coffee beans only 5%.

The planting area ratio of main coffee producing states in Yunnan

Second, the industrial structure is unreasonable.

The coffee industry in Yunnan is dominated by planting, with a single model, small and scattered, over-reliant on primary production, insufficient extension of secondary and tertiary production, low output value, and lack of comprehensive competitiveness.

Due to the gap between coffee processing technology and developed countries, Yunnan coffee exports mainly consist of raw coffee beans, with low added value.

Third, the recognition of the origin is low.

If there are few high-quality goods and low-end industries, market awareness will be low.

Many coffee producers have indicated the origin of coffee.
For a long time, few brands have indicated Yunnan coffee, which has led to people not knowing that coffee is produced in Yunnan.

Of course, with the strengthening of our brand awareness, more and more drinks labeled Yunnan coffee appear.

The squeeze of transnational capital

In addition to its own problems, the reason why Yunnan coffee cannot be sold is more because it is exploited by transnational capital.

The multinational capital represented by Nestlé has spent a lot of effort in promoting the development of Yunnan's coffee industry, but after all, capital wants to "eat meat" and will not do charity.

For decades, Yunnan Coffee has allowed multinational capital to obtain high-quality and cheap coffee raw materials.

image

Yunnan Coffee Picture Source: People's Daily Online · Yunnan Channel

However, due to the lack of precise industry standards and lack of deep processing technology, Yunnan Coffee is always passive in pricing power.

According to official data, each ton of Yunnan coffee beans sold for at least RMB 3,000 per ton compared to international equivalent products.
In this way, my country has lost at least tens of billions of RMB in the past 30 years of low sales!

Some economists have calculated that for a cup of coffee of about 30 yuan, the portion that falls into the hands of coffee farmers is actually only two cents!

With high-quality and cheap raw materials, multinational capital has been able to expand China's coffee market step by step.

China's coffee beverage market has grown rapidly, reaching 11.
5 billion U.
S.
dollars, and it is still growing at an annual rate of over 10%.

And this market has almost always been monopolized by multinational capital.

China lacks local coffee brands and coffee culture brand building.
Many people think that drinking coffee is a foreign consumer culture, and Yunnan coffee has a low degree of recognition.

The domestic coffee industry has even formed an unwritten unspoken rule: many coffee companies and merchants like to stay close and seek further distances and import foreign coffee at a price that is one to two times higher than that of Yunnan coffee.

Li Xiaobo, president of the Yunnan Coffee Association pointed out sharply:

Yunnan coffee is often exported overseas at low prices, packaged and OEM by foreign coffee companies, and then sold back to China at high prices.

Many people are complacent drinking foreign coffee, but they don't realize that a large part of foreign coffee actually comes from China.

Yunnan coffee was purchased at a low price, and it went abroad for a while, and became an OEM "imported coffee", which was then sold to Chinese consumers at a more expensive price.

Multinational capital eats coffee farmers at the top and consumers at the bottom.
This abacus is working!

How to do

How can Yunnan coffee get out of the fate of being sold at a low price?

First, cultivate an international pattern.

Coffee itself is an imported product, and it is also an international industry.
If you only focus on the domestic market and feel that you can eat well by doing a good job in the domestic market, you are destined to starve to death.

Only by broadening our vision and forming good international trade relations is the long-term solution for the development of the coffee industry.

Second, cultivate the awareness of quality products.

High-quality goods have a high degree of distinction, which can drive the development of an industry.

To create a boutique, not only good coffee, but also government support and business incubation, industry standards and brand building are indispensable.

Third, develop supporting industries.

In the coffee industry chain, in addition to planting, efforts must also be made in processing, warehousing, logistics, and transactions, especially in financial services and intensive processing.

With a sound industrial chain, high added value and high profits, the industry can develop soundly.

Fourth, improve technology research and development.

The industrialization of crops has always had a standardization problem.
Yunnan coffee planting and processing technology still needs to be broken through to ensure that the coffee output standards remain consistent.

Per capita coffee consumption in China is still very low.
Compared with 5.
6 kg in the EU and 4.
2 kg in the United States, China is only 0.
03 kg.
This means that the Chinese coffee market is huge and promising.

With an annual growth rate of more than 10%, this market has a great opportunity, and it may even give birth to a world-leading coffee company.

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