Allegra Strategies hosts European Coffee Symposium

The European Coffee Symposium 2014 ‘From Home Markets to Globalisation’ was held in Istanbul, Turkey last month. More than 400 people gathered at The InterContinental hotel for the two-day program, which combined a tSupply & Innovation Day, a host city Study Tour, the European Coffee Awards evening and the Symposium. Jeffrey Young, Managing Director, Allegra Strategies, opened the symposium with his keynote speech, presenting the findings of Project Café14 EU. Project Café14 EU found that, having overtaken Germany, Turkey is now the second largest branded coffee shop market in Europe, after the UK. Young outlined the current market statistics, factors to consider in individual markets, coffee megatrends, as well as his future outlook. Doug Zell, founder of Inteligentsia and a former Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, shared insight into the US market and key learnings from his experience building Intelligentsia for global expansion. Ross Quail, General Manager Wholesale, St Ali, drew on his experiences in expanding brands abroad and explored the Australian coffee market, how to do business is Australia and the changing behaviour of specialty coffee in a growing market. Toby Smith, Founder and Director, Toby's Estate spoke about speciality coffee and its expansion globally.