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This study aimed to describe the cognitive associations existing among specialty coffee consumers through the means-end chain theory and personal values.

The research follows a descriptive qualitative study that used in-depth interviews and laddering, to collect data among 40 interviews with regular consumers of specialty coffees in Brazil. The interviews were transcribed, and from the content analysis, the attributes, consequences and values that emerged in the discourse of consumers of specialty coffees were found. The categories were later classified – according to the level of abstraction – and inserted into the LadderUx® software to generate the implication matrix and the hierarchical map of values. The interpretation of results occurred in a descriptive way.

Based on a hierarchical value map, the following personal values were identified: universalism, self-directed action, accomplishment, tradition and personal security. These values can be considered guides for consumption behavior. They are also related to consumption behavior that values technical attributes, such as roast level, packaging, aroma and flavor, and the relationships between these values and personal improvement, social relationships and recognition are relevant factors involved in decision-making.

This study presents the cognitive structure of Brazilian specialty coffee consumers. The coherent use of this information enhances the development of marketing actions involving communication actions, relationships with internal and external customers, new farm management strategies, direct trade with consumers and sustainable improvements in the production chain. These are the factors that can motivate the purchase of food, thus attracting new consumers to this emerging market.

The main aim of this research was to explore specialty coffee experience dimensions and what drives revisit intentions through experiencescapes. The theoretical framework on experience co-creation in food and wine consumption by Carvalho et al. (2021) was employed to explore the dimensions of specialty coffee shop experiences and specialty coffee consumer revisit intentions.

Using the interpretivist epistemology, this research explored these factors from the perspectives of customers, coffee shop baristas, and managers and owners to better understand consumer behaviour in the context of urban coffee shops. In-depth interviews were employed to collect data to obtain first-hand, emic perspectives.

The notion of specialty coffee and its experiencescape were examined in the context of a region of tea-dominated landscapes. This research highlighted the significance of baristas as agents of coffee connoisseurship, being able to introduce the beans and the art of coffee making to customers in active ways. The findings amplified that olfactory encounters triggering a myriad of senses are crucial to the specialty coffee experiencescape.

This is among the first studies to explore the driving factors for customer visits and revisit intentions to urban coffee shops. The findings point to greater sophistication and engagement in-person and online for urban coffee shops. More importantly, the olfactory encounters differed for solo and group customer.

Building on Guimarães et al. (2019) study and using the modeling of structural equations, the objective of this paper was to elaborate constructs whose variables would enable the characterization and distinction of individuals among these different groups of consumers and to provide insights into their transition between them.

The constructs were validated by the average variance extracted adaptive (AVEADP) index. The transition between consumer groups is explained and encouraged by advances in their conceptual and perceptual knowledge. Thus, regular consumers should be addressed with messages aimed primarily for the social aspect of consumption; enthusiasts, by reinforcing simple to moderate aspects commonly used as product purchase criteria and experts, attracted by the emphasis on complex criteria related to specialty coffee's conceptual and perceptual knowledge, highlighting their influence on the beverage's sensory profile.

Those results enabled a better understanding of these consumers and can guide the marketing strategies of different actors in this market.

Important attempts to understand and characterize Brazilian specialty coffee consumers were conducted by Guimarães et al. (2019) and Ramírez-Correa et al. (2020). However, further studies are needed to differentiate different specialty coffee consumer groups and enhance the market applicability of those studies results. In addition, despite its importance, there is a paucity of public domain studies about the national consumption of specialty coffees, being the results of this work important for the wide dissemination of such information.

The present study aims to examine consumers’ happiness experiences for speciality coffee consumption in Thailand by considering the role of consumers’ active participation, sharing of experience and consumer experience co-creation.

A purposive survey was conducted in speciality coffee shops located in the largest commercial city and industrial development centre in the Northeastern Region of Thailand, Khon Kaen City, which yielded 271 usable and valid responses. The proposed model was evaluated by using a structural equation analysis with a partial least squares technique.

The results confirmed that consumers’ active participation and sharing of experience affected their experience co-creation, which in turn contributed to the consumers’ happiness experience at the speciality coffee shops.

This study contributes to the consumer experience co-creation and social media literature by proposing a conceptual model for the speciality coffee consumption experience. Furthermore, the study findings contribute to the existing literature by investigating new linkages, such as the role of consumer experience co-creation in a speciality coffee context as a mediating variable of consumer active participation and the sharing of experience with consumers’ happiness experience.

There is a growing interest in understanding the strategic behaviour of family firms producing international commodities such as coffee, particularly in contexts where decisions about what products to sell, where to commercialise them and how to promote them appear to be highly based on both business and family aspects. The purpose of this paper is to explore product differentiation strategies in family firms in the specialty coffee industry across Latin American countries. Whilst the socioeconomic relevance of coffee production in Central America is unequivocal, the approach and rationale of families that engage in specialty coffee production remain underexplored.

This study examines product differentiation in specialty coffee family farms across countries in Central America: Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The study relies on in-depth interviews, case studies and an interpretative approach to unpick the dynamics of product differentiation by families in business dedicated to producing specialty coffee.

The findings show that product differentiation in specialty coffee family farms is influenced by both business and family aspects and driven by entrepreneurial stewards. Coffee-farming families can engage in product differentiation through a shared vision, a combination of traditional and specialised knowledge, and through the continuous development of an exchange network. The findings reveal a connection between families in business balancing family and business interests, and the strategic intention to build up their assets entrepreneurially over time.

This study contributes to the literature on stewardship and strategic behaviour in family firms when families in business engage in differentiating their products in a highly competitive industry. More specifically, this study focuses on companies across countries where coffee is of crucial socioeconomic importance, and where the said companies are owned and managed by families. The study expands understanding of product differentiation in family-enterprise-first businesses and suggests that the family elements in differentiation can be explained through an entrepreneurial stewardship perspective.

The paper aims to understand the role of sensory quality scoring used at the competition auctions on pricing outcomes and how the auction process could be improved to increase sustainability in the specialty coffee market.

The authors build a conceptual model explaining the potential role of sensory quality scoring in generating inequitable outcomes in specialty coffee auctions. The authors' research is exploratory. The authors base the propositions on the findings of the extant literature and our analysis of data from 24 Best of Panama (BOP) Auctions that took place between 2017 and 2021.

A striking feature in recent BOP Auctions is a winner-takes-all (WTA) outcome. The authors also document the presence of significant price inversion. The authors attribute these outcomes to the interactions of information-poor producers, information-rich intermediaries and conspicuous consumers in competition auctions, where the product quality measurement is highly unreliable.

Data need to be gathered more broadly to enable the operationalization of the current propositions into testable hypotheses.

These strategies intend to provide guidelines for producers, consumers and other value chain participants on creating equitable solutions to a thriving industry where a WTA phenomenon occurs.

The current study is the first to argue that existing quality scoring practices, as well as conspicuous consumption, contribute to the inequities. Finally, the study proposes novel interventions to standardize the quality grading protocols and communicate them transparently to both producers and consumers.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the effects of quality coffee production on climate change adaptation using household surveys and interview data gathered from coffee farmers in Yirgacheffe, southern Ethiopia.

A sample of 352 households, stratified into conventional coffee farmers 232 (66%) and specialty coffee producers 120(34%), was used. The propensity score model for participating in quality coffee production was estimated using 14 covariates, and the impact of quality coffee production on adaptation to climate change adaptation was examined. The results are augmented with qualitative data collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews held with randomly selected smallholder farmers. A telecoupling theoretical perspective was used to understand the link between coffee farmers’ adaptation practices and the demand for quality coffee, as coffee is a global commodity.

The PSM analysis reveals that quality coffee production positively influences climate change adaptation. This implies that conventional coffee producers would have performed better in adaptation to climate change if they had participated in quality coffee production. The results of group discussions also confirm the positive effects of quality coffee production on adaptation to climate change, which also suggests a positive spillover effects for sustainable coffee farm management.

This study suggests enhancing quality coffee production is essential if a more sustainable and climate change resilient coffee livelihood is envisioned.

Though many studies are available on adaptation to climate change in general, this study is one of the few studies focusing on the effects of quality coffee production on climate change adaptation by smallholders in one of the least developed countries, Ethiopia. This study provides a better understanding of the importance of adaptation strategies specific to coffee production, which in turn help develop a more resilient coffee sector, as coffee production is one of the most sensitive activity to climate change.

High-specification food products that reach prices or expert reviews above average, results from buyer-supplier engagement in quality management. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main attributes of the coffee industry supply chain that deals with high-specification products. Coffee may be included in this category of consumption goods that has increasing importance at consumption level around the world. Several groups of high-quality food products such as wine, coffee, spirits and cheese seem to have a very similar supply chain.

This study was based on multiple case studies. Three research techniques were used in the investigation: secondary data analysis, direct observations and interviews with coffee company’s managers and experts. The within-case and the cross-case analyses made it possible to find the main attributes of a high-specification product supply chain.

The cases studies pointed out differences between the two groups of coffee shops in relation to their supply chain strategies. The first group can be called Independent Coffee Shops, since they are focussed on the coffee preparation business. The second group can be called Integrated Coffee Shops, due to the fact that these organizations are responsible to manufacturing activities in addition to the coffee preparation activities. Despite this supply chain configuration difference, both groups have a similar perception about their role for the final consumer, to provide a premium experience with coffee.

The main limitation of this research comes from the fact it was possible to interview only one person in each organization. Only the commercialization of the supply chain was analyzed, if the agricultural production was also analyzed, this paper could have broader implications.

The results of this research show the configuration of a supply chain that handles a high-specification product. They are set to transform the trade of a product that has a component of volatility in its quality attributes into a trade of a product that embodies all the desirable attributes preferred by a specific group of costumers. The logic of a supply chain that deals with commodities is different, since in most of the cases it will try to accommodate the variations on quality that comes from nature. This paper describes the market based strategy of 12 organizations and their supply chain configuration in order to offer a premium product.

Food quality is a multi-dimensional concept comprising both objective and subjective components. Quality as defined from an industry perspective usually relies on different instrumental assessment and on ratings of “experts” which may not necessarily align with consumers’ perception of quality. The purpose of this paper is to deal with consumers perceptions of intrinsic quality in coffee from a sensory scientific and behavioral economic perspective.

In a blind taste test (n=205), naïve consumers tasted two cups of coffee and decided which they preferred. The two coffees varied greatly in their “objective” quality (based on expert grading) and retail value. Consumers were then revealed that one of the cups contained a coffee that was much more expensive than the other, and that they could get a free cup of their preferred coffee if they could correctly identify the most expensive one.

The results showed that preferences were equally distributed among the high- and low-quality samples, and that consumers did not perform better than chance level in the identification task. These results suggest that current grading systems used in the industry may be poorly correlated with the way consumers actually experience coffee, and thus that quality inference in the marketplace is more likely influenced by external cues (e.g. brand, label and price) than to intrinsic product quality. Nevertheless, the results also show that consumers who correctly answered the identification task were also significantly more likely to prefer the high-quality sample. This tentatively suggests that better sensory expertise is correlated with a preference for higher quality, though future studies are needed to confirm the correctedness of this interpretation.

This work highlights the difficulty of objectively defining food quality, and the limited usefulness of experts’ ratings widely used in the industry. Managerial implications of these findings, as well as implications for consumer policy, are discussed.

This case describes the situation surrounding the entrance of Starbucks International Coffee into the Kuwait marketplace. It requires students to consider relevant small business and entrepreneurship issues in determining an appropriate response. These issues include: international joint ventures, culture, gender issues, marketing channels, and cross‐cultural management issues.