This used to be an old habit of mine.

Every year I'd make predictions, right.

My vlog is a link down below.

If you want to go and read those from years past This year, I thought it'd be fun to make a little video spending a little bit more niche of the points on my predictions for this year.

So here we go.

Prediction.

Number one Higher prices are gonna have a negative effect on quality.

Now this probably seems a little bit confusing on there is a precedent for this.

A few years ago, back when the sea market price that commodity price, that kind of globally traded price for coffee that spiked to above $3 and in lots of parts of the world that actually had a big effect on quality, it meant the producers didn't have to work is hard.

Thio get a kind of premium for their coffee.

That meant that people were delivering less ripe stuff, sorted worse on in turn, pass the world.

It meant that the quality dropped because prices were good.

How does that relate to specialty right now, There are, ah, lot off specialty coffee roasters out there in the world trying to buy good coffee on their requirements for it.

I'm gonna be that it's traceable that it's a good seed stock.

That's really a good variety of Arabica that's grown a good attitude on dhe, ideally, that it tastes pretty good, but it's a very competitive market right now.

It's a seller's market.

The power, for once, lies a little bit more with the cellar, and rightly so.

They should make his much money as possible.

Right now out there, it probably means there are enough buyers who are willing to take a small drop in quality as long as the coffee still fits.

All the traceability requirement is still the right altitude, still the right variety.

But the course is not quite as good as it was and still pay for that in order to secure coffee.

Add a kind of steady fixed price for their business because right now it's incredibly competitive out there in specialty.

As a result, I think we'll start to see Maura Maura coffee hitting the market that's pretty well grown, not desperately well sorted, necessarily reasonably sorted, but not exquisitely sort of not really beautifully sorted the same way that we've come to expect in recent years, where working a little bit harder certainly did produce a bit more of a premium.

Now you don't have to work quite as hard to hit that premium.

And I think that effect is gonna be seen in the quality of coffee being bought and sold by specialty coffee roasters.

Prediction.

Number two is that Amazon starts listing Whole Foods catalog in its sight on this causes some problems.

I spoke a little bit about Amazon in a previous video on.

Right Now, I think the situation is gonna be a little bit strange.

Amazon bought Whole Foods on.

They want that demographic.

But Amazon, for a long time, has wanted to do more and more and more in grocery and selling food to people alongside electron ICS and everything else.

So for me, it's only matter of time before Anderson starts to list Whole Foods catalogue all the produce the whole foods sell on amazon dot com for a long time, being a supplier to Whole foods a za coffee rice that was considered in the U.

S.

A very good thing they bought well, day push specialty coffee pretty hard, and they moved a lot of volume.

So right now, there are a bunch of roast issue currently sell to Whole Foods but wouldn't necessarily want to sell on amazon dot com.

I'm not sure how much control they're gonna have in the future.

Secondly, if you do so on amazon dot com right now, well, what happens when Whole Foods wants to list that same product?

Who is Amazon gonna funnel out order through?

Are you going to start selling to a central distribution center on Amazon, do the last leg or hold clues to the last leg?

Or you just gonna sell to Whole Foods and Amazon duel of fulfillment?

But there's a lot of questions to be answered on.

I think it's gonna call some headaches and coffee and a bit of confusion on a little bit of stress.

So Amazon, I think, is gonna cause more on more issues in the world of coffee Prediction.

Number three.

This is the year that people start taking coffee grown in China a little bit more seriously.

That has been growing coffee for quite a long time, but it's kind of never really had the quality to make it a no origin that you see offered by specialty posters.

Now, in recent years, there has been a drive for quality, and a lot of that drive has actually come from coffee roasters and copy shops within China.

In recent years, the best Chinese copies I tasted were in China.

I think they're growing a strong internal market for the coffee that produce, but some is now starting to be exported.

And I said, There's a lot of competition out there specialty roasters and I think many of them are looking for an edge, looking for new origins, looking for new opportunities.

And I think this is the year where we start to see Chinese grown coffee from Hunan pop up Maura, Maura Maur from specialty workers around the world, and I think it's a pretty good thing.

I think the quality is certainly coming up.

I think a lot of people are still skeptical because the varieties they've grown there, a pretty disease resistant but really very delicious on dhe sort of Maur flavor driven varieties haven't ever done very well in China, but with C stock that they have I think they're doing some really interesting stuff.

So this year, look out.

Especially coffee from China production number four.

I think in the UK we're going to see some very quality focused, very reputable businesses disappear.

When I say disappear, I should be clear that that might mean that they go bankrupt.

It might mean that they just choose to stop trading.

It may be that they're acquired and gotten it off.

I don't really know, but I think we're gonna see some pretty big names disappear from the coffee map in 2018.

The market right now is super tough on.

I don't think anyone is obliged to keep trading if they're not enjoying what they're doing or if they're not making enough money for the business to feel sustainable.

I don't have any insider information here.

I don't know of anyone who's teetering on the edge, but I think we would be surprised if we knew the start of the year who would have disappeared by the end of the prediction of the five.

I think this year is the year that cost a coffee is gonna make its move into specialty now in the UK cost a coffee is considered probably the largest coffee focus chain is over 1000 cost.

Two coffees In the UK It's bigger than Starbucks.

That's bigger than Cafe Nero Now.

Starbucks have been pretty smart.

They have decided to create their own sub brand on that Starbucks reserve, and they got the resource is actually the people to build some incredible kind of temples to coffee.

I think anyone who's been to the space in Seattle has been kind of blown away by the experience that they offer and the fact that the coffee is actually pretty good.

They've opened some reserve stores that haven't worked as well.

I look at London's reserve store is pretty much a failure.

I don't have a see it, but I think the store that just opened in Shanghai, which is insane, is gonna be a huge success for them.

So I think it's gonna become a Starbucks that's kind of a more of a marquee event, sort of space experiential brand for them.

In the UK Cafe, Nero tried to move a little bit of specialty.

They bought a small chain of specially focused shops called Harrison, who had been funded by supermarket giant Tesco as a J V with a chain here called Taylor Street, Brewster's, who are amongst the first moves of specialty in the UK That acquisition, I don't think, worked out very well.

I'm not sure if they'll do something different.

I don't expect too much for them, but what we haven't seen to date is anything from Costa Coffee this year, I think will be the year they make a move.

And that move could come in one of two things.

They could choose to launch a specialty focused brand, or they could choose to make an acquisition on what I probably wouldn't choose to do.

The latter I think they might.

And in the UK, I think there are a number of companies who hoped to be the chain that cost buys.

I think a fair few companies have raised money through things like equity crowdfunding.

They've taken on money from people and promise them a return, possibly in the form of an exit on.

This could be an ideal exit.

I'm not gonna say which one for sure Custer will do, but I think this year Acosta will do something that moves them into specialty.

They're seeing their market share shrink.

They're definitely feeling the pressure just from the sheer number of independent businesses out there.

This is the year that they're react.

My prediction is that 2018 is the year cost of coffee get seriously into specialty.

So they have it.

Those are my predictions for 2018.

And this is the last video of 2017.

Thank you so much for watching love to hear your thoughts.

Leave me a comment down below.

I always enjoy the discussion I have here.

Seems weird.

Who thought anyone would enjoy YouTube comments, but apparently you need some great comments.

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It would be great to see you again in 2018.

Thanks so much for watching.

Have a good one.