Milan, Aug 30 - Imports of green coffee into Italy, one of the world's major roasters, are set to rise in the next few years on the back of growing re-exports, the head of an Italian coffee body said.
Imports are seen rising despite stagnating domestic demand.
"Total coffee demand in Italy rose 4.5-5.0 percent in 2006, but this growth was largely, almost entirely, thanks to re-export of Italian coffee," Marco Paladini, president of Italian National Espresso Institute (INEI), said on Thursday.
Italy bought about 5.8 million 60-kg bags of green coffee last year in coffee producing countries and sold to consumer countries an equivalent of 800,000-900,000 bags of roasted coffee, Paladini told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"We are becoming stronger abroad as more and more people outside Italy get to appreciate the Italian way of coffee making... This year (imports) will rise again, driven by re-sales, and also in the coming years," he said.
Coffee consumption in Italy is likely to remain stable in the next few years, with growth hopes hinging on young people who appear to be drinking more coffee now than before thanks to its improved image, Paladini said. INEI was set up in 1998 to protect and promote Italy's strong espresso coffee and now unites 35 small and medium-size Italian coffee roasters and coffee machine makers.
Europe, where espresso sales have been booming recently, especially in Germany, remained the main re-export market for Italian-roasted coffee, while potentially huge markets in China and India were a longer-term perspective, Paladini said.
The world's biggest coffee shop chain, U.S. Starbucks Corp. , and leading Italian leading coffee roasters Illycaffe and Lavazza have been aiming to expand in China, India and other fast-growing economies, like Russia.
Smaller companies were more cautious and waited to see how the majors would progress there, Paladini said.
"China and India are enormous markets... But they are still very far behind in adopting coffee culture, consumption is still very low there. But we all believe in their future, especially in India," he said.
Paladini said a strong euro against the U.S. dollar slowed sales of Italian coffee on the rapidly growing U.S. specialty coffee market. It rose to $12.3 billion in 2006 from $8.3 billion 5 years ago, the Specialty Coffee Association said.
CHANGING HABBITS
While espresso has been winning hearts around the globe, domestic sales have been stagnating over past few years in Italy where coffee drinking habits are changing, Paladini said.
Italians now drink more coffee at home due to new technology which allows people to make the trademark high quality espresso at home or in the office from especially packaged capsules.
But traditional consumption in bars has fallen, especially during morning rush hours.
"It's not that Italians lack money, they lack time. There is a shift towards the Anglo-Saxon lifestyle," Paladini said.
Innovative Italian bars, accounting for about 20 percent of the total, tried to lure back customers with new types of coffee and coffee-based drinks. Their share of total coffee sales at bars rose to over 40 percent in the past few years, he said.
Italians consume about 30 million tiny cups of coffee a year, or 5.8 kg per capita, he said.