Cairo – The Egyptian coffee market has grown 15% to 20% on average per year. So says Sameh Ghanem, sales director at Abdel Maboud Coffee, a brand of the Egyptian market’s largest coffee producer. According to him, the demand for the product has greatly increased over the last years.
According to Ghanem, this has made the sector attractive to investments and ongoing development, as well as encouraging coffee production growth, opening sales outlets and increasing distribution of grinding machines, particularly in the Egyptian provinces of Cairo and Giza.
The executive says that coffee was the main beverage of the Egyptians in the Ottoman period and that the arrival of English occupation in African countries, including Egypt, led the tea to come into the country with a price lower than coffee’s. This resulted in the increase of the consumption of tea, which took over coffee’s place.
But coffee consumption has grown in the country. Abdel Maboud Coffee, which is run by the company Al-Yemeni Café 1940, has focused on meeting the Egyptian market’s needs with its variations and flavors, as well as offering exclusive blends that are the benchmarks of the company.
The company is seen as one of the Middle East’s leading coffee producers and has a state-of-art plant, constantly updating and developing its productive capacities to meet the needs of the Egyptian consumer, Ghanem says.
The company also exports and plans on boosting foreign sales to the markets of the Gulf and the United States. Ghanem explained that Abdel Maboud Coffee specializes in Turkish coffee, and that production of other types of coffee like Arabic and espresso has started to meet the needs of both local and foreign markets.
According to the executive, the company’s raw coffee beans are imported from different countries, including Brazil, Yemen and Colombia. Ghanem believes that diversifying the origins of the coffee helps the company make the special blend that makes its products stand out from others in the market. He says that the company has recently launched a new product, green coffee and Arabic coffee with cardamom, which is much sought after due to its health benefits.
Abdel Maboud Coffee participated earlier this month for the first time in the CAFEX trade show in Cairo. According to Ghanem, the show was very good, exceeded expectations and was an opportunity to meet clients and interested parties from hotels, restaurants and coffeeshops. Several business meetings were held, which is expected to make the firm exhibit in CAFEX again in the future. But the executive believes the show should have a more international bias.
Translated by Ahmed El Nagari and Guilherme Miranda
