NESCAFÉ is reinforcing its commitment to creating a sustainable future for Thailand’s coffee industry, focusing on strengthening the coffee business through inspirational brand and product innovation as well as advancing sustainable coffee farming practices. Despite a solid growth of Thailand’s coffee market in the first quarter this year and continued rising coffee demand from consumers, the local coffee bean supply is dropping due mainly to climate change and competing crops, increasing the need for imports. As the market leader, NESCAFÉ will strengthen its business to better serve Thai consumers and drive industry growth, while building climate resilience farming practices to deliver a long-term supply of high-quality local coffee beans.
In the first quarter of this year, Thailand's instant coffee market reached a total market value of 5.7 billion baht with 5% growth (compared with the first quarter of last year) due to high demand by Thai consumers (Source: NielsenIQ). Ready-To-Drink (RTD) coffee is also rising in popularity, driven by a need for convenience and record high summer temperature. The RTD coffee market reached
3.8 billion baht in the first quarter of 2024, growing by 10% compared with the same period in the previous year (Source: Kantar Worldpanel).
Thailand’s domestic coffee supply faces challenges due to climate change and competing crops, which has led to the need to import more coffee beans. Global coffee productions are also on a declining trend. It’s estimated that the global coffee supply could be reduced by approximately 50% by 2050, making Regenerative Agriculture efforts more critical than ever.
Mr. Jojo Dela Cruz, Business Executive Officer – Coffee and Creamer Business Unit, Nestlé (Thai) Ltd., said, “As the coffee market leader, NESCAFÉ will continue our active role in creating a sustainable future for Thailand’s coffee industry. We are committed to strengthening our NESCAFÉ business to better serve Thai consumers and drive the industry while advancing sustainable coffee farming to ensure a dependable long-term coffee supply for the benefit of our consumers, the farmers we work with as well as our partners and suppliers and this country as a whole.”
Strengthening NESCAFÉ’s Business with its “NES Strategy”
Based on the commitment, NESCAFÉ strategy in the second half of this year will focus on three areas, which can be summarized as NES strategy: Repositioning NESCAFÉ as an Inspiring Catalyst, Providing the Ultimate Coffee Experience through Innovation and Renovation, and Putting Sustainability at the Core of the Brand.
As the world changes, so do consumers and the role of coffee. This led to the first strategy of Repositioning NESCAFÉ as an Inspiring Catalyst with the launch of its global “Make Your World” campaign earlier this year that reached 59 million Thais. NESCAFÉ has transformed from a simple daily beverage to one that inspires people to make a difference. The brand will continue to invest to drive excitement and consumer engagement with the “Make Your World” campaign across its product portfolio.
For the second strategy, NESCAFÉ is committed to Providing the Ultimate Coffee Experience through Innovation and Renovation to serve the changing needs of Thai consumers. Recent innovations include the launch of premium NESCAFÉ GOLD Americano and Latté Ready-to-Drink (RTD) coffee as well as NESCAFÉ Honey Lemon, which received impressive feedback from consumers. Later this year, NESCAFÉ plans to launch more new products to address the need for great tasting and cold coffee both for in-home and out-of-home consumption. By continuing to invest and innovate new products, NESCAFÉ will help driving the Thai coffee industry to continuous growth.
The third strategy involves NESCAFÉ Putting Sustainability at the Core of its Brand. NESCAFÉ is advancing sustainable coffee farming through Regenerative Agriculture under the NESCAFÉ Plan 2030, a global sustainability initiative. By promoting regenerative agriculture, NESCAFÉ aims to help coffee farmers handle climate change, improve yields and quality as well as protect and restore natural biodiversity and resources.
In addition to promoting regenerative agriculture, Nestlé has provided farmers with coffee farming knowledge and technical assistance. This includes collaborating with GIZ in Thailand to develop the Farmer Business School curriculum. This initiative encourages coffee farmers to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset for agriculture. Nestlé also supports the Best Thai Coffee Contest to promote the use of regenerative agriculture practices in coffee farms, develops coffee plantlets suitable for cultivation in Thailand, and has distributed nearly four million high-quality coffee plantlets to Thai farmers.
“I’m happy to share that, with our efforts to drive regenerative agriculture in coffee farming, NESCAFÉ is now 100% Responsibly Sourced as certified by the globally recognized standard of Common Code for the Coffee Community (4C). This guarantees that our coffee beans are produced in accordance with the global sustainability standards so we can ensure a quality cup of coffee for Thai consumers.” added Mr. Dela Cruz.
NESCAFÉ is also committed to continuing to support local Thai farmers by purchasing Robusta coffee beans directly from them at a fair price based on the world’s coffee price to improve their livelihoods and ensure reliable market for their supply.