Molecular Assurance for Coffee Provenance and Variety

The international coffee market is huge and growing.
Coffee consumption is growing at +2% pa / Value at +5 >8% pa.
Annually, over a 130 million x 60 kilogram bags of raw coffee is produced from approximately 100 origin countries. On today’s terminal market, this values the raw coffee market at c. 30 > 40 billion USD $.
However, a precise valuation of the total market is difficult, because each and every original coffee trades at a different value or price.
This reflects the perceived quality, taste and scarcity of the raw material, as well as supply and demand fundamentals and is commonly termed the differential.
In a highly competitive commercial environment, the art and skill of the coffee blender and roaster has become increasingly important.
The coffee blender can chose from many different original coffees, and mindful of the commercial impact of the differential to profit and loss, has over the years developed what are commonly called Flavour Families.
Flavour Families are baskets, or bundles, of original coffees, which collectively have very similar visual, taste and performance characteristics.
Originally, they were developed to deliver a consistent product throughout the vagaries of a harvesting cycle.
However, increasingly Flavour Families are used today to deliver a like for like product at a lower cost.
In an environment of dynamic and speculatively driven commodity prices, there is no known method, or tool, to robustly audit unaccredited coffee recipe and therefore to confirm authenticity and provenance of the vast majority of coffee product sold.
This project therefore aims to build and offer a system of protection to the coffee drinking general public - both in the respect of coffee product consumed at home and away from home
The objective is to devise a DNA based tool to prove provenance of product.
This could become a trade and consumer industry quality standard benchmark or ‘seal’ of authenticity – In a similar way to the European Kite mark for electrical products
Such a Tool could ensure that:
• Consumers receive fair value for money / the quality and type of product which they believe they have purchased
• Consumers have a clear and simple benchmark to measure and understand product quality and provenance
• Retailers and trade fairly price product according to known ingredients
• Lower grade / cheaper flavour families cannot be passed off for superior raw coffee