Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The Ivory Coast is
Speaker 1: famous for its cocoa production, but there's another being that's
Speaker 1: starting to get even more attention.
Speaker 2: We produced our old coffee. You have more and more
Speaker 2: local roasters that are coming up.
Speaker 3: Before it was all about, you know, importing coffee that's produced,
Speaker 3: you know, in Europe.
Speaker 1: Like chocolate. Much of Africa's coffee is sold to be
Speaker 1: processed abroad. But can one West African entrepreneur bring homegrown
Speaker 1: and roasted coffee to the African market.
Speaker 2: We teach a lot of things about coffee, things I
Speaker 2: never knew about.
Speaker 3: It's a new role in discovering and it's also always
Speaker 3: kind of evolving.
Speaker 1: On this week's special episode of The Next Africa Podcast,
Speaker 1: I take a look at the growing popularity of specialty
Speaker 1: coffee inside Africa and meet one man who's looking at
Speaker 1: to put Ivorian coffee on the map alongside Ethiopia, Kenya
Speaker 1: and Ganda. I'm Jennifer Zabasaja, and this is the Next
Speaker 1: Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the
Speaker 1: continent driving the future of global growth with the context
Speaker 1: only Bloomberg can provide. When it comes to coffee, The
Speaker 1: big players most consumers know are Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia.
Speaker 1: While African farmers are making inroads on the global market,
Speaker 1: especially in East African countries like Ethiopia and Uganda, much
Speaker 1: of the coffee is shipped abroad whilst it's still green
Speaker 1: with most of the roasting and consumption happening abroad. But
Speaker 1: Heidi Baydoun wants to change that. He's the entrepreneur behind
Speaker 1: Cafe Continent, a specialty coffee shop and roastery in the
Speaker 1: Ivorian economic hub of Abijan. I went to meet him
Speaker 1: at one of his roasteries to find out what it
Speaker 1: takes to build a new brand of home grown coffee.
Speaker 3: Fourth generation Lebanese West African from from West Africa.
Speaker 2: But but I.
Speaker 3: I've been traveling a lot in the past the past years,
Speaker 3: and I did my undergrad in in Australia and Sydney
Speaker 3: and especially coffee culture over there. It was was very,
Speaker 3: very developed. And and after that, when I came back
Speaker 3: to to the Harvy Coast, I saw that there was
Speaker 3: an opportunity.
Speaker 2: I took a lot of courses and I started the project.
Speaker 1: And you call it a project, why why do you
Speaker 1: use that term not a business.
Speaker 3: I guess initially it's not for me. It's it's it's
Speaker 3: not just about making money. You know, when you say business,
Speaker 3: he's always did the financials for me. There's there's more
Speaker 3: than just you know, making money. It's it's it's an ideology,
Speaker 3: it's a philosophy. It's it's you know, bringing people together.
Speaker 3: It's changing the paradigm. It's creating something new that basically
Speaker 3: maybe people will never you know, never thinking about in
Speaker 3: the past. It's about hiring a team of people that
Speaker 3: don't necessarily know much about this culture, especially coffee culture,
Speaker 3: working together on the specific mission, specific goals that are
Speaker 3: for the future of you know, the continent. We produce
Speaker 3: our own coffee because it's written on the on the glass, but.
Speaker 2: No one sees that.
Speaker 3: No one understands that we roast our own coffee traditionally.
Speaker 3: That's how I guess, you know, people drink their coffee here.
Speaker 3: I would say there are two markets, right, there's the
Speaker 3: market that's like cheap coffee, you know, the nest cafe
Speaker 3: kind of coffee, and also the cheap powder ground coffee.
Speaker 3: And there's also the important coffee. So there's two different segments.
Speaker 3: You know, we intervene in the you know, obviously in
Speaker 3: the segment where people used to consume important coffee because
Speaker 3: quality wise, this is what we're offering.
Speaker 2: We're offering a very high quality coffee.
Speaker 3: But what we are proposing is high quality coffee that
Speaker 3: is locally produced.
Speaker 2: So we have.
Speaker 3: Ivorian coffee beans that we select from the different villages
Speaker 3: in the western part of the country.
Speaker 2: We usually go to those areas at least, you know,
Speaker 2: once a month. We tell them.
Speaker 3: How we know we want the coffee to be kind
Speaker 3: of collected. The cherry is basically how the cherries should
Speaker 3: be tried, so and so forth. So we go all
Speaker 3: the way to this part of production and we have
Speaker 3: our own factory. We have you know, very high technologically
Speaker 3: advanced equipment, good processes, and we have our coffee shops
Speaker 3: as well, where we control also the quality of the
Speaker 3: coffee that is brood and that is basically.
Speaker 2: Sold to our customers.
Speaker 1: In a moment, we'll have more from my interview with Heidi,
Speaker 1: including his ambitions to grow Cafe Continent as a brand,
Speaker 1: plus our soft comodities reporter Mumbi Kitao will join us
Speaker 1: to explain the state of the coffee market in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. Welcome back today. We're talking African coffee and
Speaker 1: back at Cafe Continent. I asked Heidi where he wants
Speaker 1: to see the company in five years time.
Speaker 2: Even here at the.
Speaker 3: Factory level, we've basically expanded.
Speaker 2: We've taken World War space.
Speaker 3: We've also invested in new machines, higher capacity machines. When
Speaker 3: it comes to our coffee shops, we you know, we
Speaker 3: started with one small coffee shops, coffee shop thirty five scarimeters,
Speaker 3: and then we you know, developed other coffee shops. Now
Speaker 3: we have three operational coffee shops and we're opening a
Speaker 3: fourth and fifth one this year in Africa in the
Speaker 3: Irvy Coast. So four are going to be in Abi
Speaker 3: joh and one in San Pedro, which is another town
Speaker 3: in the west part of the Airy Coast. And I'm
Speaker 3: actually working on a franchise model so that we can
Speaker 3: maybe start franchise in our concept.
Speaker 2: Maybe at the end of the year. Is the interest there, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the interest has been there from the start.
Speaker 3: We've had people interested asking about our concept, whether or
Speaker 3: not you know, they can collaborate open the same thing
Speaker 3: in different you know, places around the world, different cities, we've.
Speaker 2: Had people interested globally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, globally yeah five year ago for Claffic Contina would
Speaker 3: be at least in West Africa to be the number
Speaker 3: one high quality coffee after we are in the air coasts,
Speaker 3: but we might not be in West Africa yet, so
Speaker 3: we have to develop also our brand in neighboring countries
Speaker 3: such a Ghana, Ancheria, Senegal and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: So this is something we need to work on.
Speaker 3: So open the first shops outside of the air coast,
Speaker 3: whether in the region or not, you know, whether in
Speaker 3: Africa or not, what do present and other places.
Speaker 2: Around the world.
Speaker 1: So how challenging is the market for African coffee. Right now,
Speaker 1: joining me is Mumbi, Guitar Bloomberg Soft Commodities reporter back
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Mumbe, it's great to have you back.
Speaker 1: How are you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm very fine. It's happy to be buck.
Speaker 1: It's really nice to have you so, Mumbi, you have
Speaker 1: traveled the continent looking at a number of commodities. We're
Speaker 1: talking today about coffee. When we look at African producers
Speaker 1: and African coffee producers, how do they stack up against
Speaker 1: some of the other coffee producers globally.
Speaker 4: When it comes to the African continent, a lot of
Speaker 4: focus is placed on Ethiopia, which is the biggest produce
Speaker 4: over Arabica beans, and we have Uganda which is now
Speaker 4: the biggest producer of robusta beans. That's within the African continent.
Speaker 4: But there's also focus on countries like Rhonda, Burundi, Kenya
Speaker 4: that produce what you'd consider specialty coffee. They do not
Speaker 4: export in huge time aged like Ethiopia and Uganda, but
Speaker 4: they do produce the premium coffee that most of the
Speaker 4: European market prefer.
Speaker 1: You talk about the European market, which we'll get to
Speaker 1: some of the export markets and a little bit. But
Speaker 1: we've had you on the podcast before talking about the
Speaker 1: rising and I guess the volatile price of chocolate right
Speaker 1: because of climate change. When we think about climate change,
Speaker 1: is it affecting the price of beans and the effects
Speaker 1: on coffee farmers as much. So.
Speaker 4: The story with cocoa, which is the ingredient in chocolate,
Speaker 4: is the same for coffee. The trees are quite similar
Speaker 4: in terms that they are tree crops and they have
Speaker 4: similar challenges when it comes to climate change. We reported
Speaker 4: earlier this year about coffee prices getting to record prices,
Speaker 4: and that was mainly because of drought in Brazil, and
Speaker 4: before that we had drought in Vietnam. So it's also
Speaker 4: production is literally determined by how the weather and how
Speaker 4: the climate plays out.
Speaker 1: The King Crowers isn't attractive though, for African coffee farmers
Speaker 1: as it is for African cocoa farmers. Can you compare
Speaker 1: those two for us?
Speaker 4: They're both attractive depending on what the market is doing,
Speaker 4: depending on the price. So last year was a very
Speaker 4: good year to be a cocoa farmer and still is
Speaker 4: right now if your market is liberalized. It was also
Speaker 4: a good time to be coffee trader or coffee farmer
Speaker 4: at the start of this year. The thing is that
Speaker 4: with coffee we have a lot more producers, so if
Speaker 4: one country is lacking, then another country will pick up.
Speaker 4: But with coco, we have two big producers in Africa,
Speaker 4: so it's easy for them to kind of benefit when
Speaker 4: the market is heading up because they are the sole
Speaker 4: place where the world is reliant on.
Speaker 1: Is there something that we should be watching for when
Speaker 1: it comes to African coffee farmers? And I say that
Speaker 1: because this independent entrepreneur that I met in the Ivory Coast.
Speaker 1: He's really making a push to get the global consumers
Speaker 1: to understand more about this African the beans and the
Speaker 1: specialty coffee and just how rich it is. What is
Speaker 1: it that maybe we should know and we should be
Speaker 1: watching war and you as a soft commodities reporter that
Speaker 1: you're looking.
Speaker 4: At not just as a soft commodities reporter. I come
Speaker 4: from Kenya, where we used to be one of the
Speaker 4: biggest producers of coffee in Africa, and that's no longer
Speaker 4: the case, but still Kenya is one of the biggest
Speaker 4: producers of specialty coffee, same as Round, the same as Africa,
Speaker 4: same as other smaller origins in Africa. I think the
Speaker 4: key for them is value addition and the entrepreneur you
Speaker 4: met with, that's a good way to try and capture
Speaker 4: the market because if you look at the supply chain,
Speaker 4: the family receives about five to ten percent of the
Speaker 4: retail price of coffee, whereas the rest of the margin
Speaker 4: goes to the trader, and a huge margin also goes
Speaker 4: to the rostera Rosa's like Nestley, such big companies tend
Speaker 4: to take up that kind of imagine. So if Africa
Speaker 4: was going to grow in its coffee production, and it's
Speaker 4: in revenue and income. They need to focus more on
Speaker 4: value addition, creating their own rosteries, selling their own coffee,
Speaker 4: drinking their own coffee. I think that's a good place
Speaker 4: to start. Growing up, we didn't drink a lot of coffee.
Speaker 4: We drank a lot more tea. So if Africa was
Speaker 4: to boost its own consumption rather than exporting all its
Speaker 4: coffee to the European and the American markets, then there
Speaker 4: will be more room for growth for the farmers and
Speaker 4: their income.
Speaker 1: Are those trends changing?
Speaker 4: Do you see that some countries the trend seems to
Speaker 4: be changing. I mean if theopy is a predominantly coffee drinker,
Speaker 4: but their countries like Kenya, you Ganda, where coffee consumption
Speaker 4: is trying to make in roads, but it's only within
Speaker 4: the urban centers where you find maybe a java or
Speaker 4: an upscale at cafe where the younger millennials or the
Speaker 4: gen z are happy to grab a cap and almost
Speaker 4: like brag with it on Instagram. But we just need
Speaker 4: to get that more at home consumption where it's a
Speaker 4: consideration from breakfasts the same way in Europe everyone gets
Speaker 4: coffee for their breakfasts.
Speaker 1: And this is this is a tradition that I deal
Speaker 1: with human bee. How do you like your coffee? Do
Speaker 1: you do you drink coffee?
Speaker 4: Joh And I don't know why you do this to me.
Speaker 1: I have to You're Kenyon and you're you're not just
Speaker 1: a suf commodities reporter. Do you like coffee?
Speaker 4: Should I lie? Should I tell the truth? I do
Speaker 4: like coffee only when I really need the caffeine boosts.
Speaker 4: But I am really a tea drinker. And after having
Speaker 4: the water bowl, do you know there's always this controversy
Speaker 4: whether you add the milk first or the tea bug fast.
Speaker 4: But I put my water on tea bug and then
Speaker 4: milk later. But I think I am warming up to
Speaker 4: coffee slowly. The it's slow. Let's start with instant. Then
Speaker 4: we're going to get to the lattice of the cappuccinos.
Speaker 1: Much still has a place in this podcast because of course,
Speaker 1: tea is a very big market for so appreciate that insight.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Mumbi Guitao, and thank you also to
Speaker 1: Haidi Baydude, the founder of Cafe Continent, for showing me
Speaker 1: around his grocery in Abijan. This program was produced by
Speaker 1: Adrian Bradley and tiba Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and
Speaker 1: review the show wherever you usually get your podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: Jennifer Zabisaja. Thanks as always for listening