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By OLIVER STRAND- Published: February 7, 2012
SOMETIMES it’s hard to tell how much coffee costs, even if you know what you spent. At least that’s the case with many of the single-serve brewing machines that are soaring in popularity.
For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound.
That’s even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.
An exclusive single-origin espresso like the Ethiopia, Gedeo Single Origin Espresso from Sightglass Coffee costs $19 for a 12-ounce bag, or about $25 a pound. La Cima beans for brewed coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, a Grand Cru selection grown at Finca el Injerto, a renowned farm in Guatemala, is $28.50 for a 12-ounce bag, or $38 a pound.
In fact, most high-end coffees cost less than $20 a pound, and the coffees you find on supermarket shelves are substantially cheaper. A bag of Dark Espresso Roast beans at Starbucks is $12.95 a pound, and a bag of Eight O’Clock beans for brewed coffee at the Food Emporium is $10.72 a pound.
How much of that coffee goes into a cup varies according to who (or what) controls the machine. For instance, a Lavazza Gran Crema espresso capsule has 7 grams of coffee, the standard for most chain coffee stores. But independent coffee shops regularly pack 14 to 22 grams into an espresso shot.
When it comes to single-serve systems, you’re not just paying for coffee, you’re paying for convenience and the technology that makes it possible to brew a single cup in seconds. Pop in the pod, push the button: it’s a sure thing every time. Supermarkets and specialty stores are filled with items that make it easier on you, and it’s up to the shopper to determine if it’s worth it.
Some decisions are easy (rendered pork fat, fresh pasta); others are a toss-up depending on who’s in the kitchen (chicken stock, salad dressing). Where single-serve coffee falls on that spectrum depends on whether you regard coffee as something you make or something you drink.
“Americans under the age of 40 are thinking about coffee pricing in cups,” said Ric Rhinehart, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. “If you asked my mother how much coffee cost, she would have told you that the red can was $5.25 a pound and the blue can was $4.25. If you ask people in their 20s and 30s, they’ll say coffee is $1.75 to $3.75 a cup.”
This generational shift helps explain why single-serve coffee is the fastest-growing sector of the home market. According to a study from the National Coffee Association, single-serve coffee is now the second most popular method of preparation after conventional drip brewers, by far the dominant method. In 2011, 7 percent of the cups of coffee consumed in the United States were made with a single-serve brewer, up from 4 percent in 2010.
The premium that single-serve coffee commands makes it especially lucrative. Julian Liew, a spokesman for Nespresso, said single-serve coffee is 8 percent of the global market, but accounts for 25 percent of its value. It’s likely that the number will continue to climb.
According to Keurig, 4 million of the company’s K-Cup brewers, for regular drip coffee, were sold in the 13-week run-up to Christmas 2011. During that same period, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sold more than $715 million in K-Cup packs. The pods and brewers are now front and center at stores like Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. Keurig licenses its technology to other companies, and last year, Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks started making K-Cup pods. Keurig even sells a refillable filter that you can pack with your own coffee.
Nespresso has sold more than 27 billion capsules worldwide since it was introduced in 1986. Later this year Ethical Coffee Company plans to sell Nespresso-compatible capsules for around 20 percent less on Amazon.com. So the United States might see something novel for single-serve coffee: a price war.
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Published: January 05, 2012 in Knowledge@Wharton
The worldwide wine business is a good case study in free trade, given that there are many producers and few restrictions on commerce. In recent years, the cost of wine has reflected this generally free global market in two ways — one good and the other bad, as George M. Taber argues in this op-ed piece. Taber is the author of four books on wine. His latest is titled, A Toast to Bargain Wines: How innovators, iconoclasts, and winemaking revolutionaries are changing the way the world drinks.
The international wine market was a favorite subject for classical economists in the 18th and 19th centuries to help explain the benefits of free trade. Adam Smith advocated free trade in his opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He wrote against the backdrop of mercantilism, which urged countries to export products to accumulate gold and import as little as possible so that they could husband their yellow metal.
Smith mused that he might be able to make wine in his native Scotland. "By means of glasses, hotbeds and hot walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine, too, can be made of them at about 30 times the expense for which at least equally good wine can be bought from foreign countries," he wrote. The frugal Scotsman considered that crazy, adding: "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage." His strongest example was wine and cloth. The Portuguese could manufacture cloth, but were more efficient making wine, while the English could make wine, but were better at producing cloth. Smith argued that it would be better for both countries if they concentrated on their respective strengths and imported the other product.
Nearly a half-century later, the English political economist David Ricardo refined Smith's theory by introducing the concept of comparative advantage. A country didn't have to be absolutely better than the other. It was only necessary to be comparatively better in one area. The products Ricardo cited were, again, English cloth and Portuguese wine: "England exported cloth in exchange for wine, because, by so doing, her industry was rendered more productive to her; she had more cloth and wine than if she had manufactured both for herself; and Portugal imported cloth and exported wine, because the industry of Portugal could be more beneficially employed for both countries in producing wine."
Wine remains today a good case study in free trade since there are many producers and only a few restrictions on commerce. Wine is a worldwide business reaching from Germany to South Africa and from Canada to New Zealand. It is now made in every state of the U.S., including Alaska and the Dakotas. Relatively young wine countries such as Mexico and Brazil have also joined traditional producers. Farmers in all countries are an independent lot who don't take orders from anyone, and so there is large global overproduction. Supertankers of wine are now sailing the world to unload the product wherever they can get the best price.
Some governments or business groups have attempted to push prices higher by taking vineyards out of production, but with only modest results. The European Union has done that because local wine consumption has declined, while the consumption of beer and soft drinks has increased. Champagne producers in France in 2009 dramatically reduced output in an attempt to boost prices. Australian winemakers have plowed under some vineyards, but that has had little impact on the world market.
The cost of wine in recent years has reflected this generally free global market in two ways, one bad and one good. First, the bad.
Newly wealthy residents of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are turning to wine in a big way and have been dramatically pushing up the prices of the world's most prestigious products. Prices for premium wines, especially from France, have gone through the ceiling, primarily due to demand from China. Château Lafite Rothschild, Bordeaux's most famous label, is selling at astronomical prices. A decade ago, an American consumer would pay $100 or so per bottle. Today, in New York City, a bottle of Lafite goes for $1,600.
The reason for the sharp increase in prices is simple supply and demand. Mercedes-Benz can easily increase car production to meet unexpectedly strong demand. Winemakers, though, cannot ramp up the output of wines coming from a prime vineyard whose size has not changed in years. With more consumers vying for the same number of premium bottles, producers can increase the price. Château Lafite, the favorite label of the newly wealthy Chinese, simply sells out faster today than it did previously. In fact, a hot underground market has developed in China for empty Lafite bottles with well-preserved labels. Unscrupulous Chinese entrepreneurs fill the recycled bottles with lesser wines and then sell them at Lafite prices.
In mid-December at the duty-free shop in Paris's Charles DeGaulle Airport, a shopper described only as "an Asian" paid 50,000 euros for just six bottles of French prestige labels. Part of the world wine market seems to be heading toward tulip-mania levels.
BRIC wine drinkers are buying primarily just a few wines -- the First Growths of Bordeaux's left bank, the most famous wines from the right bank such as Château Pétrus, leading Burgundies like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, and the most costly Champagnes, including Louis Roederer Cristal and Dom Perignon. The higher the price for those wines, the better they seem to sell. Few wealthy consumers, though, are venturing much beyond prestige wines to buy the thousands of French products selling for $25 or less. So while a very small group of producers are prospering, the French wine business as a whole is in trouble.
Giving Prestige Wines as Gifts
Typical of the new Chinese wine consumer is Yang Bin, chairman of Beijing DSH Auto, a General Motors dealership in the Chinese capital. He told me his favorite wines are Château Pétrus, Château Cheval Blanc and Château Ausone, which all sell for very high prices. He said his daily wine is Château l'Évangile, which goes for about $200 a bottle. He owns a wine collection of some 6,000 bottles.
In November 2011, Jim Clerkin, the CEO of Moët Hennessy USA, the big French Champagne producer, said that his prices would be going up after the first of the year, largely because of booming sales in the Asia Pacific region and Russia. He added that for the first time in a half-century, Moët's sales are growing strongly despite a weak U.S. economy.
One of France's most famous winemakers explained to me recently that the international wine market is going through a phenomenon that he has now experienced three times when newly rich countries begin drinking wine. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the Americans; in the 1970s and 1980s, it was the Japanese; and now it is the Chinese. In the first phase, consumers buy prestige wines to give as gifts rather than enjoy as personal consumption. The most important feature of such wines is their reputation. People giving gifts never want to look cheap or unsophisticated. To them, price is irrelevant, while reputation is everything. This French producer said he could sell his entire annual production in China at much higher prices than he can get anywhere else, but after doing that for a few years, he would have lost his traditional markets. So he's spreading out his production to old and new consumers.
At the same time that the cost of prestige wines is exploding, however, the good side of the free market in wine is that there are now more and better products available at attractive prices than ever before. The two hottest wines in the American market over the past few years have been Australia's Yellow Tail -- the official spelling is [yellow tail], brackets included -- and California's Charles Shaw, aka Two Buck Chuck. The former sells for about $7, and the latter for $1.99 in California and $2.99 in most other states. Nearly 700 million bottles of Charles Shaw have been sold since the brand hit stores in 2002. In addition, hundreds of other bargain wines sell for less than $10 a bottle. For example, Wegman's, a grocery chain in the Northeast, now carries a line of $6 wines from around the world.
And while the prices for the top Champagnes such as Roederer Cristal are starting to top $200 a bottle, inexpensive sparkling wines are selling very well. These are made using the same techniques as the real stuff but with grapes grown in Germany, Spain, Italy, California and Washington state. They generally sell for less than $15 a bottle and are often very good.
The quality of such wines has improved dramatically in recent years, thanks mainly to the use of technology first developed in other areas. The Israelis made the deserts bloom with the help of drip irrigation, and Californians are using that same technique to produce more and better wines in such hot regions as the San Joaquin Valley. Night harvesting and refrigerated trucks that bring grapes to the winery under ideal conditions have also improved wine quality, not only in California, but also in Chile, Argentina and Australia.
The greatest story never told in the wine business is the improvement of those bargain products. The American wine media focus mainly on premium wines that few people can now afford, and offer scant coverage of less expensive products. As a result, publications have generally missed the improved quality of less expensive bottles.
Bargain brands do surprisingly well in blind wine competitions. At the 2007 California State Fair wine competition, a 2005 Two Buck Chuck Chardonnay won best of class against wines costing as much as $55. Last year, Charles Shaw Pinot Grigio won the same award at the Pacific Rim Wine Competition, and other inexpensive wines such as Beringer, Cupcake and [yellow tail] also score well in contests.
I hate to think that I probably will never enjoy the experience of tasting France's greatest wines because the prices have gone to such levels that I, and many other consumers, can no longer afford them. But then I'm sure I will also never drive a Ferrari. A $1,600 bottle of Château Lafite works out to about $267 a glass. Is any wine in the world worth that price? I'm reminded of a comment made by the winemaker of Screaming Eagle, a California cult wine, after a six-liter bottle of it sold at auction for $500,000, which works out to $10,417 per four-ounce glass. "It's wild," she said. "You drink it, and it's gone. My brain doesn't get it."
Adam Smith and David Ricardo, however, would get it. They would have understood what happens when supply is limited and some consumers will pay any price to buy a scarce product. At the same time, though, the classical economists would also be happy that the price and quality of the wines that most people drink on a regular basis have never been better. The market is working. For many of us, it is the golden age of wine.
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L'ISMEA (Istituto di Servizi per il Mercato Agricolo Alimentare) è un ente pubblico economico [...]
Nell'ambito delle sue funzioni istituzionali l'ISMEA, anche attraverso società controllate, realizza servizi informativi, assicurativi e finanziari [...]
>> link ultime quotazioni vini
"L'ettogrado corrisponde alla quantità corrispondente di 100 litri di un vino con 1 grado alcolico. Gli Euro litro li calcoli così: euro/litro = ettogrado/litro * gradi alcolici del vino / 100.
Quindi per esempio, 10 euro/ettogrado di un vino di 12 gradi corrispondono a: 10 euro * 12 gradi / 100 litri = 1.2 Euro al litro."
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I MIGLIORI 100 VINI ROSSI 2011?
LI METTE IN FILA “GENTLEMAN”, MENSILE DI “MILANO FINANZA” CHE, SOMMANDO I VOTI DELLE 5 GUIDE (GAMBERO ROSSO, L’ESPRESSO, VERONELLI, AIS, MARONI), PREMIA I VINI DEL CENTRO E DEL SUD.
IL PRIMO? “ES” GIANFRANCO FINO.
Arriva la classifica dei migliori 100 vini rossi italiani del 2011, ricavati dalla somma dei giudizi delle 5 guide del vino più importanti del Belpaese, Gambero Rosso, L’Espresso, Veronelli, Associazione Italiana Sommelier e Luca Maroni e curata da “Gentleman”, il mensile di “Milano Finanza”.
Certo, ogni guida dà voti e punteggi a modo suo, per cui è stato necessario uniformare i diversi parametri e tradurre ogni punteggio in centesimi: il risultato è una “Top 100” che, nelle prime dieci posizioni, segnate da diversi ex aequo, vede premiare i vini del Centro e del Sud del Paese: sul gradino più alto sale il Primitivo di Manduria Es di Gianfranco Fino (Puglia, 476 punti), seguito, in seconda posizione, dal Torgiano Rosso Riserva Rubesco Vigna Monticchio 2006 di Lungarotti (Umbria, 473 punti), mentre sul gradino più basso del podio trova posto il Sassicaia 2008 della Tenuta San Guido (Toscana, 469 punti).
Fuori dal podio, alla posizione n. 4 il Tignanello 2004 di Antinori (Toscana, 468,5), al n. 5 il Kurni 2009 Oasi degli Angeli (Marche, 468), a pari merito con il Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Villa Gemma 2007 di Masciarelli (Abruzzo), seguiti alla posizione n.6 dal Montiano 2009 di Falesco (Umbria, 465,5). Quindi, al n. 7, troviamo due vini del Nord, il Barolo Falletto di Serralunga d’Alba 2007 di Bruno Giacosa (Piemonte, 465) e l’Amarone Classico 2007 di Allegrini (Veneto). Seguiti alla posizione n. 8 da altri due vini, il Terra di Lavoro 2009 di Galardi (Campania, 464) ed il Montepulciano d’Abruzzo San Calisto 2008 di Valle Reale (Abruzzo). A chiudere la top 10 dei migliori vini rossi d’Italia, al n. 9 il Solaia 2009 di Antinori (Toscana, 463,5) ed alla n. 10 un’altra coppia, formata dal San Leonardo 2006 della Tenuta San Leonardo (Veneto 462,5) e dall’Aglianico del Taburno Terra di Rivolta Riserva 2008 di Fattoria La Rivolta (Campania).
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9 Nov. 2011 - Bella Mia Italian Restaurant on Baoqing Lu (Shanghai) hosted an evening of Roman cuisine at which Italian Wine & Food is honored to be invited and sponsor.
Chef/owner Franco Varesano prepared typical dishes like "Spaghetti alla Carbonara", "Braciolette d’Abbacchio Panate" and "Crema alla Romana". Silvestri wines (a winery from Castelli Romani area) were served for the first time in Shanghai.
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Based on their sweetness, sparkling wines are usually classified in different categories according to the residual sugar content in the bottle:
EXTRA BRUT Between 0 and 6 g/l
BRUT Lower than 12 g/l
EXTRA DRY Between 12 and 17 g/l
DRY Between 17 and 32 g/l
MEDIUM DRY Between 32 and 50 g/l
SWEET Over a 50 g/l
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«Non sapete fare sistema» dicono di noi in Cina, dove i vini e la cucina del nostro Paese soccombono a Francia e Germania.
«In Cina avete un grande potenziale ma non sapete fare sistema, non avete logistica e canali distributivi al livello dei concorrenti», che poi sono quasi sempre Francia e Germania.
Nelle parole di un diplomatico di Pechino si condensa il solito vizio italico. La Cina è uno specchio immenso che riflette il carattere nazionale sul mercato più grande del mondo. Si prenda l’agrifood: la cultura del cibo e del bere bene italiano da soli non bastano.
A Pechino tutti si ricordano ancora il flop di Piazza Italia. Il centro commerciale aperto nel lussuoso quartiere di Chaoyang nel settembre 2008 doveva essere la nostra vetrina agroalimentare, prima tappa di un’espansione a Shanghai, Hangzhou e Tianjin. A fine ottobre era venuto persino Silvio Berlusconi a benedirlo.
Peccato che in appena 14 mesi si sia trasformato in uno dei più grandi crac del made in Italy. Nel consorzio c’erano alcuni tra i più importanti marchi italiani: Crai, Cavit vini, il consorzio Grana Padano, San Daniele Service, Conserve Italia e Frantoi Artigiani, riuniti sotto la sigla Tac (Trading Agro Crai). L’idea era corretta: fare massa critica e mettersi in una location patinata per spingere il nostro agroalimentare.
Pie illusioni. Piazza Italia è subito un deserto e da luglio 2009 smette di pagare affitti, stipendi e fornitori. Il consuntivo è un bagno di sangue: Tac perde sei milioni e fa debiti per 4,5. Un misto di spese folli, location sbagliata, presunzione e sottovalutazione del mercato cinese. Sugli scaffali c’era infatti la summa disordinata del nostro «food», divisa tra un supermercato Crai, un ristorante, un self-service, una caffetteria e un’enoteca. Una formula che non ha mai attecchito nella classe media pechinese. «La brutta figura italiana: facevate pagare generi da supermercato, pur ottimi, a prezzi di boutique...», ha riassunto il «China Daily» nei giorni caldi del crac.
Piazza Italia è certamente il flop più grande ma non è l’unico caso di aziende o catene del ramo agroalimentare che hanno dovuto chiudere bottega. Negli ultimi tempi è successo a Caffè Parma, Gusto Menta, L’Isola, Oro. Identici i motivi: target di clientela e location sbagliati, piani di business faraonici, logistica debole. Si salvano i mini corner Lavazza e Illy ma sono, appunto, piccoli numeri.
Sul vino la situazione non è migliore. Siamo i campioni del mondo, ma da queste parti non si nota affatto. Il nostro export in Cina aumenta a tre cifre ogni anno solo perché si parte da quasi zero. Nel 2010 sono state commercializzate bottiglie per 40 milioni di euro, mentre complessivamente le esportazioni italiane di vino ammonta a 4 miliardi. In pratica solo l’uno per cento delle nostre bottiglie finisce sulle tavole cinesi.
Girando per Pechino lo si capisce. Al ristorante all’ottantesimo piano del China World Summit Wing, la nuova torre da 300 metri dove ha sede anche Apple China, c’è una mega cantina piena di champagne e vini francesi, californiani, australiani, ma mancano i grandi italiani. Al ristorante in cima al Park Hyatt è più o meno lo stesso. Alla fiera del vino di Pechino il padiglione dei francesi è tre volte più grande di quello italiano e sugli scaffali dei market si trovano Zonin, Prosecco Valdo, Villa Antinori, Gaia, ma il loro spazio è piccolo rispetto ai cileni e agli australiani e le bottiglie costano mediamente di più.
«Il 60 per cento del vino importato in Cina è francese», spiega Stefano Latorre, a Pechino dal 2003, dove con la sua Karpek opera come trader nel settore food and beverage. «Ma se parliamo di spumanti e champagne la quota arriva al 75 per cento».
I francesi sono sbarcati in Cina vent’anni fa con Sopexa, l’azienda di promozione pubblica dell’agrifood, e hanno continuato ad investire grosse risorse su marketing e pubblicità. Il resto lo fanno i loro canali di grande distribuzione, Carrefour e Auchan. «Il risultato è che oggi per i cinesi la parola vino coincide con il trinomio rosso, francese e bordolese», continua Latorre. Sul top di gamma i «grand crus» sono diventati uno status symbol. Una bottiglia di Château Lafite annata 2008 può costare più di duemila euro e i cinesi ricchi amano regalarlo nelle occasioni speciali.
Non basta. «La Francia è fortissima anche sui vini economici, il più delle volte marchiati con una bella etichetta di castello bordolese spesso fasullo e distribuiti a due euro nelle grandi aree urbane». Il nostro Chianti o il Sangiovese sono più buoni, ma costano troppo.
Insomma, messa a confronto con tedeschi, francesi e americani, in Cina, proprio in un segmento strategico come l’agrifood, esce fuori la debolezza di fondo del made in Italy: l’incapacità di industrializzare e distribuire le nostre eccellenze. Abbiamo inventato la pizza, ma la catena mondiale è Pizza Hut; siamo i migliori gelatai, ma il colosso è Häagen-Dazs; siamo i re del caffè, ma la commercializzazione la fa Starbucks.
Tra Pechino e Tianjin il fenomeno si nota facilmente. «In Cina il mordi e fuggi è un illusione», continuaLatorre. «Purtroppo non abbiamo grandi gruppi che fanno economie di scala, arrivano le singole aziendine agricole, spendono 3-4mila euro per gli stand alle fiere sperando di trovare il distributore bravo che ti piazza un po’ di bottiglie. E alla fine se ne tornano in Italia sconfitti, con la coda tra le gambe».
Fare business coi cinesi è snervante. Un gioco continuo di dissimulazioni. «Ma le imprese italiane spesso non lo capiscono...»
by MARCO ALFIERI – inviato a Pechino - www.lastampa.it
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