It is estimated that global consumption in coffee year 2009/10
will total 129.7 million bags. Of this total, 68.9 million bags were consumed
in importing member countries of the ICO including the new EU member countries;
22.5 million bags were consumed in non-member countries, and the remaining 38.3
million bags were consumed in producing countries.
Consumption has grown by an average of around 1.2% a
year since the early 1980s. Probably the most spectacular growth has been witnessed in
Japan, where consumption has grown by around 3.5% a year over the same period, although it appears to have reached a plateau over the last
ten years. Japan is now the third largest importer of coffee in the
world.
There has been very little growth in coffee consumption in Europe over the last
five years, with consumption showing signs of
stagnation and possibly even decline.
The situation is only slightly better in the United States, where overall
consumption, despite the boom in the specialty sector, has remained virtually unaltered over the past five years.
The figures for consumption in non-ICO member countries suggest
that there has been a surprisingly large upsurge in consumption in these
countries since the turn of the century, growing on average by over 6% per
annum, although the recent economic turmoil has reduced coffee consumption
in many of these countries. However these figures should be
read with some caution, as the data for exports and hence consumption in these
countries is not necessarily always collected from the same source.