Convenience store coffee and home cafe demand ‘Mugwort’ in Coffee Flation
The highest price for an Americano at a coffee shop is 5,000 won.
# Office worker A has been making morning coffee at home, not at a coffee shop in front of the company, since last month. Person A said, “After working from home, the cost of meals and coffee was burdensome.” He said, “I decided to take my morning coffee when I get off the house and go to work, and replace my lunch coffee with a commercially available coffee bag.”
This year, as the price of coffee shops increased one after another, a new word called ‘coffee inflation (coffee + inflation)’ appeared. As the burden on the pockets increases, the demand for ‘home cafes’, where you can make coffee at home like Mr. A, is rapidly increasing, and it seems that coffee from convenience stores with low prices is also being sold instead of coffee shops.
23-day shopping application (app) According to Market Kurly, from the 19th of last month to the 17th of this month (4 weeks), the sales of ‘Cold Brew’ made with cold water jumped 1.3 times from the previous 4 weeks. Coffee-related products were also popular. Sales of grinders that can grind coffee beans have tripled, and sales of coffee machines have also jumped 1.2 times.
Sales of oat drinks (oat milk) and milk, which are good to mix with coffee, also showed an increase. Sales of Oatside’s ‘Barista Blend Oat Milk’, a product designed for latte, increased by 2.7 times, and the sales of organic oat drink by Minor Figures, a British coffee manufacturer, also increased by 1.7 times. Sales of low-fat milk and sterilized milk also jumped 1.2 times and 1.1 times, respectively.
Sales of bread and desserts that go well with coffee also showed an upward trend. Sales of tarts and croissants increased by 1.2 times.
According to a food company affiliated with Shinsegae Group, sales of online dessert brand ‘Beckia Enuvo’ in the first half of this year jumped 26% from the same period last year. In particular, the sales growth of desserts such as cheesecake and brownies, where the texture of the raw material is intact, was more than double that of general bakery and dessert sales.
Curley said, “Major coffee shops are raising beverage prices at high prices, which is why the word ‘coffee inflation’ is coined. “He said.
Earlier this year, coffee franchises increased their prices one after another. The price of Americano and cafe latte, the main menu items, has been adjusted from the mid-4,000 won to 5,000 won, increasing the burden on the pocket. In the case of Coffee Bean, the price of coffee beans was raised again in May for the first time in three months, opening the ‘5,000 won era’ for a cup of Americano. The price of Americano at Starbucks and Angel-in-us, affiliated with Shinsegae Group and Lotte Group, has risen to 4,500 won.
An increasing number of people are looking for cheap convenience store coffee instead of coffee shops that cost close to 5,000 won for a cup of Americano.
According to the convenience store industry, sales of private brand (PB) coffee beans from CU and GS25 in the first half of this year are continuing to increase by more than 20% both last year and this year. In the case of GS25 ‘Cafe 25’, the sales growth rate in the first half of this year (compared to the same period of the previous year) reached 31.8%, nearly 6 percentage points higher than last year (26%). CU’s ‘GET Coffee’ sales increased by 20.4% last year, followed by 22.6% in the first half of this year.
Convenience stores are appealing to consumers who value ‘cost-performance’ by equipping them with expensive devices that cost more than 10 million won. GS25 supplied coffee machines from Yura in Switzerland worth 13 million won to franchisees, and CU recently started supplying models in the mid-$10s to La Simbali in Italy.
24, in more than two-thirds of its stores, had Italian Grand Idie devices priced at 10 million won.
Here, each convenience store has begun business renewals to satisfy customers’ tastes. This is to satisfy the taste of consumers who have become more sophisticated in line with coffee shops.
In March, GS25 renewed and blended coffee beans and released an espresso menu. In some stores, raw milk is used in the latte menu to further enhance the quality. An official from GS25 emphasized, “We have readjusted the blend of four famous coffee producing regions including Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil and Ethiopia for 5 months. We introduced espresso, the basic of coffee, with a new menu.”
CU recently introduced new beans during the renewal process of GET coffee. A CU official said, “It is blended with coffee beans from Colombia, Brazil, and Nicaragua with a medium dark roast. You can feel the mild acidity and savory taste in the first bite, and it is characterized by a sweet finish.”
Consumers who want to use the coffee at a lower price even if they find a coffee shop due to the price burden have also increased the demand for gift cards. The number of purchases of Gifticon products last month on the gifticon trading platform ‘Nikon Nacon’ jumped 67.1% from the same month of the previous year. The sales of gifticons related to cafes, the number one in sales of gifticons, jumped 15.4%, leading the upward trend.
Various stories of the pouring distribution industry are cut into bite-size pieces. to taste useful [오정민의 유통한입]would you like to take a bite together?
Oh Jung-min, reporter at Hankyung.com [email protected]