Coffee break

It started with a sip. Florante de la Cruz patronized a Mocha Blends outlet two years ago while attending a trade exhibit in Australia.

"I liked the coffee so much that I wanted to make sure I could drink that same coffee when I went back home," said de la Cruz, who quickly entered into negotiations with Mocha Blends owner, Mocha Coffee Pty. Ltd.

De la Cruz started with importing roasted Australian coffee beans from Mocha Coffee, which has a 3% market share of the A$2 million Australia coffee business. When the Australian company bought into Elektra, de la Cruz also became the exclusive Philippine distributor for the coffee roasting machines, including the portable ones which are popular among coffee shops and hotels in Metro Manila.

Roasting facility

Next year, de la Cruz will no longer be importing his coffee beans. Instead, he will be pushing Benguet arabica which will be roasted in a P300 million facility that Mocha Coffee is putting up in the country. A portion of the locally grown and roasted beans will be exported to Australia and other Asia countries, which tracks the 2.5% to 3% average annual growth worldwide.

"We will initially come in with A$500,000 in roasting plant facilities, technical experts (including the master roaster or barista) and working capital in January as soon as incentives for such a pioneering venture are released by the Board of Investment. The investment is expected to reach A$1.5 million in 12 months," said Mocha Coffee’s international sales and marketing manager Peter Kalos.

The roasting plant will operate at one to two tons a week, increasing to as much as five to 10 tons a week for the first year, depending on market requirement.

Market

"Mocha Coffee has been importing Benguet arabica since August, roasting them and selling them in its 200 coffee shops in Australia as well as in the Philippines through the four outlets of Mocha Blends in Metro Manila," said de la Cruz, who owns and operates the four-store gourmet coffee chain with his son, Lee Andrew de la Cruz.

Based on total coffee beans purchases, the local gourmet coffee market is estimated at over two tons a month or 25,000 tons a year. The market is concentrated mostly in Metro Manila, with small but growing pockets in the urban centers of Cebu, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Zamboanga, and Davao.

The Philippine outlets of Mocha Blends sell Kape Maharlika, the first local arabica to be conferred the Kape Isla seal of excellence by the International Coffee Organization Certifying Agency.

In addition to roasting coffee, Mocha Coffee also intends to sell its cocoa brand locally.

"Eventually, we will put up a school for baristas to ensure that coffee making and coffee drinking in the Philippines is elevated from its current instant or filtered coffee stages," said Kalos.

The Philippines currently imports 25,000 metric tons of robusta (for instant coffee) each year. With the entry of more gourmet coffee shops like Mocha Blend, the demand for freshly brewed or roasted traditional coffee and for flavored coffee (which is popular among the young) is inevitable.