“For the foreseeable future, our path lies in becoming a niche producer of quality coffees for export and domestic consumption rather than a large volume grower.” (Guillermo Luz)

WHAT IS THE OUTLOOK ON PHILIPPINE COFFEE FROM A LOCAL, REGIONAL, AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE?
“The Philippines was once a major producer of coffee. We are one of the few countries that can produce the four main types of beans—Robusta, Excelsa, Arabica, and Liberica or Barako. For the foreseeable future, our path lies in quality coffees for export and domestic consumption rather than a large volume grower.”

HOW HAS THIS EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS?
“The biggest change in the last 20 years is that coffee consumption has grown tremendously. Today, we consume about three to four times as much as we produce. Demand has far outpaced the supply. Thus, the country has had to import lots more coffee. The tragedy is that our coffee-drinking habits are making farmers in other countries rich. If we produced more coffee, I’m convinced those beans would sell here because the Philippines has quality coffee.”

HOW CAN PHILIPPINE SPECIALTY COFFEE BE MORE COMPETITIVE IN THE GLOBAL COFFEE SCENE?
“For specialty coffee to become competitive, I believe we will need to organize the growers so we can build up larger pools of supply and build up quality. With larger inventories, we will become a more reliable supplier to international markets. The consolidated inventory will enable us to effectively and confidently engage in strong marketing efforts because we know we will have the supply and quality by consolidating growers into cooperatives or network of growers. They have also been able to consolidate their marketing efforts so that a brand and reputation has developed around certain countries like Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, and others.”

WHAT IS NEEDED FOR THE PHILIPPINES TO BE GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE IN THE SPECIALTY COFFEE ARENA?
“Once we consolidate growers, we should be able to train them to increase and improve the quality of their yields. The larger volumes will introduce economies of scale for processing and other post-harvest activities. PCBI is studying how to consolidate growers so we can gather together larger supplies of quality beans for export market. Once we expand the overseas market for quality coffee beans from the Philippines, we will need to focus on building seedling nurseries. We expect that more people will want to become growers or present growers who will want to expand their existing farms.”

WHERE DO YOU FORESEE PHILIPPINE SPECIALTY COFFEE GOING?
“I am pretty confident that the future for specialty coffee is bright. The local consumption is quite strong and continues to grow while foreign markets are just beginning to discover Philippine coffee. And don’t forget—we have many Filipino living abroad. I’d like to think many of them would be proud to drink and serve Philippine coffee.”

Guillermo Luz is a founding trustee of the PCBI. He is responsible for gathering the coffee stakeholders back in 2002 to what is now a 15-year-old authority in coffee. Bill is also in the National Competitiveness Council and an active member of business organizations. He is an avid coffee drinker and has also tried to plant coffee. 

TOURISM can be a ticket to promote Philippine coffee.

This is the direction of the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc. (PCBI) as bared by its President Pacita Juan.

“To promote the coffee industry, our direction now is to push for coffee tourism,” she said in a press conference last October 24 at the SMX Convention Center–Lanang during the 10TH National Coffee Summit.

She added that they already connected with the Department of Tourism to realize this vision.

“Tourists nowadays want interactive tourist products and harvesting coffee in a farm, we believe, can lure local and foreign tourists at the same time through this we can promote our coffee, particularly specialty coffee which gaining interest now among farmers and industry players,” Juan said.

Initially, PCBI, she said, will be orienting DOT’s tour guides for a Coffee Harvest experience in Cavite, and soon in Baguio and Bukidnon and DOT will be bringing coffee farm tours to coffee-growing areas especially during harvest time.

For Davao City, Juan mentioned that they identified Mt. Apo as a viable tourism site for a coffee harvest experience.

“For as long as there is mountain, tourists will be there because we have a lot of climbers and trekkers,” she said.

She explained that when the harvest tours start, farmers will have help in harvesting only the ripe ones, and may invite several rounds of tourists as the coffee ripens over time.

“As tourists will harvest only the ‘red’ or ripe fruits, the farmers will be assured of better quality harvests. It is good business sense for the farmer and for the tour operator,” Juan shared.

Tourism undersecretary Alma Rita Jimenez supports this plan and said that “Come and harvest with us” campaign can be of good tourism value.

Specialty Coffee awareness increasing
Juan said that awareness of specialty coffee is increasing. More consumers and coffee roasters are buying specialty coffee at a good price.

“Our market now is the specialty roasters who pay triple higher than of what ordinary roaster pay. In America they are asking top quality of coffee. This is how we will empower our farmers, since we had a huge problem on supply, we can still tap the specialty coffee market. Now, farmers’ knowledge on this is improving,” she said.

At present, Robusta is now being bought by specialty roasters at P150 per kilo as compared to ordinary buying price at P80 to P90 per kilo while Arabica is being bought at P250 per kilo as compared to P140 –P150 per kilo of the ordinary buying price in the market.

In the Philippines, some 10 percent is being served by specialty coffee of the total demand by coffee drinkers while 15 to 20 percent of the total global demand is served by specialty coffee.

“A lot are really looking for it now, more people are willing to pay the price in exchange of quality coffee. Look at the 3rd wave coffee shops that are sprouting in the Philippine market. I think the specialty market is growing thus, the Filipino coffee palate is changing,” She said.

Some of the Mindanao specialty coffees graded 86% are Bukidnon’s Kape Maramag (Robusta) and Inhandig Tribal Multi-Purpose Cooperative (Arabica), both won last year’s Kape Pilipino Green Coffee Quality competition.