Brazilian companies invade the market of coffee in capsules

An eye on the growth of coffee consumption in single dose and having the patent expiration of capsule technology on the horizon, Brazilian companies are invading a thread still dominated by Nespresso, Nestlé.
Next week, the paranaense Lucca specialty coffees
opens, in Pinhais, Curitiba metropolitan region, the first plant to coffee production in the country. The unit will have the capacity to produce 1 million capsules per month. "We have invested around r $ 2 million of its own resources," says Brenda Lawrence, partner of the company. Before that, the Lucca came to manually fill more than five thousand capsules per month. The product manufactured by paranaense is compatible with Nespresso system. "We're not competitors because we work with product of unknown, enãoblend, queéa mixture of grains," he says. The equipment — Lucca patent — was developed with local technology. "It makes sense to this corporate strategy to move away the most of the potential risk of possible patent infringement," says John Daniel, a member of the intellectual property of Tozzini Freire Advogados, remembering that a patent falls into the public domain 20 years after the filing date of the patent in the Instituto Nacional da Propriedade Industrial (Inpi), here in Brazil. Traditional coffee, Miner processor the Três Corações group enters the market of capsules in September, through a joint
venture with the Italian Caffita.
"Over the next three years will be invested r $ 100 million for the production of capsules and construction of a plant in 2015", says Group Marketing Director, Paula Castellan. However, in a first moment, the production is made in Italy. "But the coffee will be Brazilian," he says. "To avoid any strangeness, for the consumer, we chose to send the raw material, paying for the costs of the operation," he says. The Group also is investing in a machine of its own, not compatible with Nespresso system. "We believe we have more to offer in terms of added value, more than simply a line of coffee in capsules for the competitor," he says.
The mining Utam also researched for two years how best to enter the market. A year ago, closed partnership with Portuguese Kaffa Caffè, which produces the capsules (compatible with Nespresso system) who invaded the Brazilian market in March. Utam is forecast to import 4 million units in 2013. "Even this year, the Kaffa will build a factory in Ribeirão Preto (SP), which should further strengthen our partnership," Announces Ana Carolina Soares de Carvalho, Director of Utam. "The machinery comes from Portugal by the end of the year we started to produce the capsules in the year
that comes, "he explains. Before that, in August, Utam launches its pro-own line of coffee makers.
According to data from consultancy Euro monitor, the number of machines proffessional coffee went from 100 thousand in 2011 to 146 thousand last year, which explains in part the growth of single-dose coffee consumption in Brazil. According to consulting, from 2008 to 2012, sales of coffee
capsule went from R $ 24.5 million in 2008 to R $ 206,4 million in 2012, here.