The Coffee Paradox

The global coffee chain is currently characterized by a paradoxical coexistence of a ‘coffee boom’ in consuming countries and a ‘coffee crisis’ in producing countries. This book shows that the ‘coffee paradox’ exists because the coffee farmers sell and the coffee consumers buy embed increasingly different ‘attributes’. The distribution of value along the coffee chain is then determined by how actors define, control and value its different attributes – given a certain demand and supply situation. The authors argue that the passage from the ‘economy of things’ to the ‘economy of ideas’ leaves limited perspectives for primary commodity producers. At the same time, new opportunities provided by ‘speciality’ and ‘ethical’ markets can be exploited – but only if producers become more active in shaping standards, producing new attributes, adding service activities to a product, and controlling intellectual property rights associated to the identity of a product.