The Explosion Of Fairtrade Coffee Retail Sales In The UK

The global coffee market has gone through significant transformations in the last few decades, especially when it comes to fair trading. Although probably unexpected to some, the UK has a huge impact on fair trading of coffee. We all know that Brits love to drink tea and talk about the weather. However, in the last decade coffee has become more and more popular in the UK. After all, the United Kingdom is the 9th largest coffee importer in the world. Surprisingly or not, the UK holds nearly 3.3% of the world's coffee import, which corresponds to nearly 185,000 tonnes. Even though British people are not the biggest consumers of coffee (average annual consumption of coffee in the UK is nearly 3 kilograms per capita), the UK has a huge impact on the world's fair trade coffee market. However, this should not be a huge surprise because when it comes to retail sales of fairtrade products, the UK is an absolute leader. For the past 12 years retail sales of fairtrade coffee in the UK increased nearly 10 times, which is quite a lot for a country of tea drinkers. Additionally, the number of coffee shops is rapidly growing, exceeding 16,000 in 2014 and more of them are using fair trade coffee products, including one of the biggest players in the coffee shop business in the UK. How has coffee culture become so popular in the UK? It's a question hard to answer. However, there is no doubt that as one of the leading fair trading countries, the United Kingdom is supporting small coffee producers around the world who don't have the support of their local governments and business sectors. These people are striving to survive and even though they are forced to work under unacceptable conditions, they are still doing their best so that we can drink coffee of the highest quality. Read the full article here http://www.market-inspector.co.uk/blog/2015/04/the-explosion-of-fairtrade-coffee-retail-sales-in-the-uk