Coffee research & industry statistics

[cortadoman]

Hi guys

First post on TMC and great to be amongst such a dedicated and informative bunch of coffee heads.

I am looking into some research around the London coffee scene and wanted to know if anyone could point me in the right direction to sourcing some statistics about coffee drinking habits.
I dont expect this info will be easy to get ahold of (as it is knowledge I bet many of you will want to know and keep guard of) but there may be some reports, surveys that can provide some handy general info and possibly some companies specialising in offering this info for a price.

Info I am interested in specifically is:
Gross consumption of coffee in the UK / per capita (I have read 70 million cups per day are consumed UK wide! - But how does this breakdown?)
Gross consumption in London per capita/area etc
Age/Demographic breakdowns for these stats
More specific breakdown of buying habits if possible

Also if possible, looking at spending behaviour in specific suburbs e.g Clapham Common
May be it is easiest to get council/consensus statistics and work from broader averages to determine this kind of information?

I realise that specific research into coffee buying habits rarely comes for free, but there must be some info out there to get me started on.

Thanks guys!
J

[ubo]

I think you will struggle to find reliable free data anywhere. You can purchase Nielsen data for retail coffee sales (i.e. grocery shelves) by geographic area and other segmentations. This data would relate to mainstream products at gross level, i.e. would exclude specialist retailers but lots of info on the multi-national brands and supermarket own label etc.

If you are looking at out of home consumption then the Allegra Strategies report would be your best bet but their sampling techniques are such that you are unlikely to have statistically valid data for suburbs of London. I don't even know if regional analysis is available from their data set and it certainly isn't published in the main report. However you can purchase specific custom data queries from them though, for instance you could probably query the number of high street chain bars within central London etc.

What do you plan to do with the data?

[bruceb]

For those who can read German or want to try the Fish for a translation:

There is a very good, short article on the terrible quality of espresso served in Germany in Der Spiegel here.

In summary: Ninety percent appalling. The cause is not the machines, but the nut behind the portafilter.

[cortadoman]

Ok thanks a bunch for the info so far.

I will have a look into the paid services though the data I am after is more specific to the cafe and take away coffee portion rather than the supermarket/take home segment.

I am interested in looking at how this info stacks up to the local demographics and consumer spending in general. there is also an idea of looking into doing business in the industry but this is a long way off for now.

Again, thanks for your feedback.

If I find anything of use I'll be sure to post the links here if anyone is interested.

Cheers
J

[Jasonscheltus]

looking through the references of relevant wikipedia articles might give you a starting point too.

All the info on wikipedia is referenced, so there's quite a list there.


For example

[CakeBoy]

Welcome to TMC J