U.s. Coffee Market Reaches New Record As Gourmet Coffee And Occasional Consumpti

More Americans than ever are drinking coffee on a daily or occasional basis in 2001-80% of US adults over 18 years of age, representing 164 million people. This is an increase of 3 million new drinkers from 2000, with the entire increase coming from new occasional coffee drinkers.

Consumption is up as well as the number of total drinkers, commented Robert Nelson, president and CEO of the National Coffee Association of USA. "With more than half the adult population drinking coffee every day (52%), daily consumption remained strong," said Nelson. "In fact, greater consumption by daily consumers led to a 6% increase in the average number of cups consumed per drinker-rising from 3.1 cups to 3.3 cups of coffee per day."

"As a result of all the new product development, marketing, and expansion of point-of-sales accessibility in the past year," said Nelson, "U.S. coffee drinkers were offered the widest possible menu of coffee products to choose among. This led to a changeover in consumption to gourmet for some regular coffee drinkers, and attracted a substantial number of new occasional drinkers, who tend to experiment with various coffees before settling on their preferred choice."

In the past year, daily consumption of gourmet coffee beverages jumped from 9% to 14% of the adult population. This represents a dramatic increase of 9 million new drinkers for the gourmet category, for a total of 28.8 million daily gourmet coffee drinkers. Equally impressive is that the gourmet coffee sector in the United States has added 21 million daily drinkers in just five years.

"With the aggressive introduction of gourmet coffee products throughout the whole bean, instant, and roast-and-ground categories," said NCA President Robert Nelson, "the American consumer gained widespread access to gourmet coffee choices. This included national campaigns by several major roasters and retailers that targeted the large office market for coffee. "

Much of the increase in occasional consumption came from gourmet coffee consumers, as 62% of the American adult population now say they drink gourmet coffee on an occasional basis, or 127 million drinkers. This represents a 15% increase over last year, when 53% of the adult population said they drank specialty coffee occasionally. Equally significant, it validates a continuing trend in occasional consumption of gourmet coffee, which has increased from 35% of the population, or 80 million drinkers, back in 1997.

At the same time, a totally new taste in coffee introduced several years ago, the iced coffee beverage, has caught on with Americans-this market segment now consists of 8 million weekly drinkers and another 2 million daily drinkers. "Consumer acceptance of iced coffee," added Nelson, "is now being taken to the next stage, the bottled cold coffee drink that can compete head on with soft drinks as a prepared beverage for the home and office markets."

Also in 2001, a new category of coffee beverages made its entry into the American marketplace-cause related coffees, such as shade-grown, organically grown, bird-friendly environment, and "fair trade certified" coffees.

Organically grown coffee was the cause-related coffee that daily or weekly drinkers were most familiar with, with 31% of just traditional coffee drinkers (18.5 million) and 51% of only gourmet coffee drinkers (31 million) saying they were aware of the coffee type. In contrast, awareness levels for each of the other types of cause related coffees was low among both kinds of coffee drinkers, ranging from only 5% to 12%.

In terms of purchase behavior, daily or weekly gourmet coffee drinkers were more likely than traditional coffee drinkers to have purchased each of the cause related coffees they were aware of. Yet here too, organically grown coffee was the most purchased type among both kinds o