Luckin Coffee Signs Major Deal! Poised to Become China's Largest Buyer of Bouchard Coffee Beans?!

On December 21st, Luckin Coffee signed a new coffee bean procurement agreement at its Shanghai R&D Center. The agreement states that Luckin Coffee will procure over 3,000 tons of high-quality Ethiopian green coffee beans in the first quarter of 2022, including 2,000 tons of premium-grade Yirgacheffe and 80 tons of Sidamo Guji coffee beans.

What does 80 tons of Sidamo Guji coffee beans mean? According to reports, domestic green coffee bean importers currently import a total of 30-40 tons of Guji coffee beans annually. However, Luckin Coffee is not procuring through distributors but directly from the origin. This means that the quantity of Guji coffee beans that Luckin Coffee will procure in the first quarter of next year is twice the total annual amount imported by domestic green coffee bean importers, potentially making Luckin the largest buyer of Guji coffee beans in the country!

Seeing this, some might wonder: aren't Guji coffee beans only the sun-processed coffee beans from the Buku processing plant? Since Guji coffee beans won the championship in 2017, DW Company has further increased the number of processing plants in the core Dimtu production area of Hambela, including "Buku Abel," "Buku Saysay," "Haro Soresa," and "Tirtiro Goye." Consequently, DW Company can produce over 1,000 tons of Guji coffee beans annually. However, in terms of growing region and processing plants, only those from the "Buku Abel" processing plant's processing area cover the original small production area of the sun-processed coffee beans "Guji" from 2017.

The name "Guji" is well-known in the coffee industry. Previously, some bloggers claimed that Guji coffee is Geisha, but in fact, Guji is a native coffee variety from Ethiopia.

This year (2021), Luckin Coffee signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Ethiopian Embassy, announcing that it would procure 1,000-2,000 tons of specialty coffee beans from Ethiopia annually in the coming years. This latest signing once again brings a "major order" to Ethiopia.

According to Luckin Coffee's product负责人, to meet the high-quality supply for Luckin's national stores, Luckin has procured over 11,500 tons of green coffee beans in 2021, with over 2,600 tons from Ethiopia, far exceeding the planned procurement volume under the previous strategic cooperation framework. It was also stated that with the continuous expansion of Luckin stores, the total procurement of green coffee beans in 2022 will further increase, with the expected annual total procurement approaching 20,000 tons, of which Ethiopian coffee beans will exceed 6,000 tons.

So why is Luckin Coffee procuring such a large quantity of Guji coffee beans? According to reports, Luckin Coffee plans to continue its breakthrough in 2022 around its "professional strategy." By popularizing and making specialty coffee part of daily life, it aims to change the stereotype that specialty coffee is "unattainable" and "only for professional groups."

So how will specialty coffee be popularized and made part of daily life? Luckin Coffee will gradually launch SOE coffee (Single Origin Espresso) in its 5,000+ stores nationwide! The coffee beans used for SOE will be Ethiopian Guji, which can compete with Geisha.

Image source: Internet

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