Is coffee a viable career choice in 2023?

A brief recap of 2022 and a few predictions for 2023.

First of all, Happy New Year.

It has been a strange old year, another surprisingly strong yet turbulent year for coffee and a terrible one for almost everything else. If anyone was looking for a little stability and found it in 2022 then I have to congratulate you on your success.

To put things into context on the coffee front, the industry has seen yet another year of price volatility, a strengthening of the dollar and some very severe weather conditions adding to the increasingly complicated logistical situations. Still, somehow coffee seems to make it onto our shores in exceptional condition despite all of these challenges. Tremendous respect for all of the champions of specialty coffee, just remembers your investment in quality does have a positive impact on the future of coffee production.

Some notable events for coffee in 2022.

Some promising news from the world of microbiology is a potential discovery of some helpful bacteria that could help limit the damage caused by the devastating fungus known as coffee leaf rust.

CQI launched a partnership with FlvorActiv introducing yearly calibrations, this was to form part of the ongoing evolution of the Qgrader assessment. They then quickly did a U-turn due to an outcry from the coffee community. Deciding against a yearly re-cal and with a view to adding this to the 3-year Q-calibration process. An interesting move and a sign of evolution, Something which is needed, but obviously, some in the industry do not Agree.

Sustainability and the initiatives (or lack of) attached to coffee production seem to be driving a common concern for the industry. This is successfully pushing regulatory bodies including the EU to take a deeper look into some areas of coffee production and its subsequent data gaps. One big area of concern is the impact of deforestation on the industry and the significant knowledge gap on the issue.

The World of Coffee returned from its forced hiatus due to the pandemic. It also had to deal with a last-minute venue change due to the war in Ukraine, moving the venue from Warsaw to Milan and still managing to put on a fabulous display of some of the world's leading coffee professionals. An event I would highly recommend if you are at all involved in the coffee industry. See you all at the next one hopefully

My last input on highlights will go to my favourite article of 2022, writing on coffee’s ability to repeat its misfortunes when it comes to market instability. A deep look at how the current market structure and price volatility is just history horridly repeating itself. Surely this will be a call for a shake-up? Said everyone the last time this occurred …

Photo by Delightin Dee on Unsplash

2022 has once again been a huge year of learning for me personally. I have dived ever deeper into the coffee vortex and I am feeling surprisingly positive, if not a little exhausted. My journey is progressing and I have some interesting things lined up that I am rather eager and excited to share in the coming weeks and months. As for the main question from this piece, Is coffee a viable career choice in 2023? my answer in short would be “it certainly is”

Coffee has and still does have huge relevance at almost everyone’s dining table. Coffee’s economic, social and environmental impact can and does connect our globalised world more than any other commodity and the next generation of coffee producers, movers, drinkers, and thinkers are the key to its future and survival. In this advanced technological age, we have the ability to share, shape, change, and challenge the current status quo. We are all looking for something to connect and inspire us to do what is fundamentally needed for a fair and just existence on this planet and coffee can be a blueprint for this. So, if you are thinking of getting involved I would recommend you do, I often wish someone had advised me to go down the rabbit hole sooner.

A few trends and predictions for 2023.

Consumers will increase the drive and demand for greater transparency within the coffee supply chain. We will see a significant shift in the way both large and small coffee companies market themselves and a big emphasis will be on certification schemes and impact proposals, Environmental reporting will start to flow from SME’s in the industry and I think the Bcorp movement will be inundated with impact assessments from the coffee sector.

There will be a few more coffee celebrities created in 2023. The rise of Mr Hoffmann has left the door wide open for the next generation of coffee influencers. I have a few that spring to mind but I want to share these in a future post as I need a little more time to do my due diligence before I do. I will however share my current favourite

My final prediction will be that of the premium coffee movement. Coffees that demand a high score of 88+ will find their place on the most serious of specialty coffee roaster’s offer list. The big debate for some time now has been how viable the current SCA scoring system actually is in determining what is true speciality coffee and some in the industry will argue that 80 points does not represent true quality anymore, this is a conversation for the future but I think there is a lot of drive in the industry to put this debate to bed and I think this could be the year that this question is heavily critiqued.

I am just as excited for this year as I was a decade ago. That is what I love about this industry, My predictions might be wrong and I will never know enough and that is enough reason to keep me searching.

I wish you a happy, healthy and successful 2023.

Burts.