it is 2019 as well you know and it seems
a sensible way to start the year by
having a look at the predictions I made
for 2018 this comes ahead of my
predictions for this year which will be
out in a couple of days
I made five predictions last year and if
anything I was just continuing proof
that humans are bad at predicting the
future so let's let's dive into one by
one what I thought would happen
prediction number one was that high
prices would drive down quality in green
coffee now on the face of it this looks
just incredibly wrong because 2018 was a
year where in the C market the commodity
market price that kind of global
benchmark of coffees value well that was
incredibly disgustingly apparently low
it was a bad year for four coffees price
and value and therefore it seems like
I'm just horribly horribly wrong here
what I will do is try and grasp it a
straw or to salvage a point which is
that competition has driven down quality
a little bit I think that we I've
certainly seen some Roasters start to
buy slightly lower qualities to remain
competitive and try and retain some
margin in their business as high levels
of competition aren't driving down price
but while I think we've seen a small
drop in quality I don't think I've
necessarily predicted the correct lever
that caused that to happen
prediction number two I predicted some
problems would happen when Amazon and
Whole Foods kind of mushed together and
and coffee got caught in the middle
this was flat-out wrong it's been a
weird EF Amazon not a great year in many
ways I suppose a good year in others but
on this point I was just straight-up
flat-out wrong it kind of weirds me out
how little has been done really to
amalgamate Whole Foods and Amazon
certainly from what I'm seeing so just
straight wrong let's move on
prediction number three was that people
would start taking coffee that was grown
in China more seriously now I think I
was right but it also maybe have a
couple of biases here firstly I included
China in the second edition of the world
as a coffee that came out in 2018 and in
addition square-mile roasted and sold
its first coffee from China now this
also however gave me an a particularly
interesting insight into consumer
behavior
this coffee sold incredibly well people
were extremely interested to taste
coffee from China people had
expectations I've also seen several
other quality focused Roasters in the UK
and around the world start to offer some
of the better coffees coming out of the
Yunnan Province in China there's some
people working pretty hard to export
some good stuff there so on this one I
feel reasonably validated so yeah let's
move on
my fourth prediction was that some very
quality focused businesses in the UK
with great acclaim would disappear now
I'll be honest I thought it would be a
slightly Ruffy here than it turned out
to be there seems to be a great deal of
hesitation in the market still but yes
in some cases sadly I have been proven
correct here what I'll do
rather than name individual names is
link to in the description below a map
maintained by a guy called Phil Wayne of
the closed specialty businesses in
London and at the bottom of the map is
the most recent ones and if you have a
little look through I think you'll see
some businesses that many of us were
surprised to see go now this may be
feels like cheating because there's a
constant churn in business anyway you
know some businesses open some
businesses closed every year there's
nothing shocking about predicting some
businesses will close so if you don't
wanna give this one to me if you feel
like this really wasn't earned sure
that's okay
maybe give me like a half point
and then my fifth prediction was that
Koster would make its specialty move now
I made its prediction because Kosta
really seemed to be struggling there
like for likes were down there growth
was really only through new stores and
they needed to do something
I didn't predict that they would be
bought by coca-cola for nearly five
billion dollars that was kind of a
surprise but it's definitely Kosta
making its play to retain its relevancy
and to find new avenues for growth so
it's sale takes it out from the holding
company with some dough which is
Whitbread into being part of coca-cola
who will turn it into I suspect a very
widely distributed brand of bottled
coffee products Kosta don't currently do
any pre bottled ready to drink products
I'm pretty sure coca-cola is going to
slap that brand on bottles of cold brew
bottles of iced lattes whatever it's
gonna be and and put that into that
distribution system which is probably
the best in the world for beverages so
yeah I think Kosta is gonna see some
pretty good growth in the next couple of
years though probably not in its cafes
and that was my predictions for 2018 in
summary I'm gonna have my prediction for
2019 out in two days so if you'd like to
subscribe this little thing that you can
push in that's nice
let me know your thoughts let me know if
you've got any feedback on my
predictions I feel like I did okay I
mean I got one just flat out horribly
wrong but I feel like I was definitely
in the ballpark on some other stuff
predictions are hard but it's kind of
fun you know and I mean like this is
kind of fun so I look forward to sharing
my 2019 predictions with you soon I hope
the year has done well for you as always
thank you so much for watching and I
hope you have a great day