Eastern Europe is notable for the fact that it has a significant instant coffee market, which is able to compete on price with other coffee products. In some countries, for example, in Bulgaria, there are many coffee machines with instant coffee on the streets, where you can get a cup for 1-1.5 euros, so there is no point in opening coffee shops there with something sophisticated, because the population simply will not accept it. The specialty market, although developing at a rate of 5-15% per year, depending on the country, remains small in absolute terms due to the small economies of the countries themselves.
For comparison: all of the above countries (20, see the list in part 1 of this article) together provide only 10% of the GDP of the US GDP ($ 2.8 trillion versus $ 27.36 trillion), and the contribution of each individual country to this indicator ranges from 0.05% (Moldova) to 2.68% (Poland). It is therefore not surprising that small economies such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia or Latvia consume little coffee in all price segments. So, even if they show a remarkable growth in consumption in a given year, expressed in 2 percent figures, in absolute terms it never exceeds a couple of tens of millions of euros.
At the same time, it is impossible to deny the fact that there is a growth in the specialty coffee market in the Eastern European bloc as such. Even in those countries where retailers and chains prevail, more and more such companies are inclined to introduce into their work processes practices for purchasing coffee subject to one or another certification, which distinguishes such coffee by its level of quality. And also to focus on responsible and moral practices of coffee purchasing, which is the basis of the specialty coffee philosophy. Despite the fact that in the mentioned countries there are no or almost no separate certifying bodies that work with specialty or exclusive coffee, issuing their unique certificates to individual brands, in a number of countries there are branches of individual international organizations.
So, in particular, in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland there are branches of Fairtrade Certification, through which local sales of coffee with this certification are promoted. In Poland alone, Fairtrade coffee sales accounted for 22% of all coffee sales on the market in 2019 (EUR 68 million). Interestingly, the main driver of Fairtrade coffee sales in Poland is the ORLEN gas station network, which has been selling Fairtrade coffee since 2008. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Fairtrade coffee sales are much smaller — about 900 tons per year, and sales are mostly organized through local supermarket chains, some of which, surprisingly, are also located in gas stations.
Another certification available in Eastern Europe is the Rainforest Alliance. This coffee is mainly distributed through international retailers (supermarkets) and coffee chains. However, in absolute terms, this market remains small. This can be explained by the fact that, despite the relative wealth of these countries compared to many other countries in the world, Eastern Europe is much poorer than Western Europe (sometimes the difference is not just times, but even an order of magnitude). As a result, the distribution of high-quality food products from the total sales volume here does not exceed 5% (and most often hovers at 1-2%). In the same highly developed country in the bloc, Poland, organic and other “eco” products are sold for no more than 350 million euros per year (at the same time, Poland remains the largest market in Eastern Europe in terms of the number of people who prefer instant coffee — 79%).
And in the relatively large market of Croatia, sales of eco and “organic” products are no more than 100 million. euros per year. And although the growth in consumption of organic coffee (eco, green and specialty variants) in Croatia, Hungary and several other countries is from 10% to 25% per year over the past 6 years, the absolute increase in money is expressed in tens of millions of euros, no more. And in the much more modest markets of Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Estonia and Latvia, tens of millions of euros per year of growth are achieved only if the indicators of all these countries are considered together. Exceptional growth was shown only in the period 2021/2020, when in some countries the consumption of specialty coffee was 28% higher than a year earlier. However, this exception is due to the fact that everyone was sitting at home and the world economy slowed down significantly compared to the previous year.