coffee import business

O

Optimistic

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hi all,
in the travels we do in Asia on charity relief we know a guy who works in local coffee production. The company already export to France but are keen to expand into other markets. We are keen to check if there is opportunity to import to Ireland and the issues involved.

The produce is completely organic and the country, produces what is regarded as top quality coffee. We can source processed coffee or get raw coffee beans and whoever gets the product have the freedom to brand/package the coffee with their own brand name.
My questions are:
What is the criteria for Fairtrade produce and who is the enforcing body? How do we get Fairtrade marked on produce?
What mark up approx is appropriate for what one can purchase in Asia and sell on in Ireland?
There will obviously be import duties and VAT and carriage to be covered also.
Is this an already saturated market and not worth getting into?
Is it possible to get guidelines on marketing please, ie best to approach small coffee shops or..?

Thanks for any advice and help in advance and apologies for the long post.
Optimistic
 
Coffee deteriorates rapidly after it is roasted - after about ten days it could not honestly be sold as a premium product. Green coffee will last several months to a year before spoiling, but bear in mind that coffee roasting is a skilled profession for which you will almost certainly need to head-hunt an employee.
There are at least four specialty roasters in Ireland: Green Bean, Ariosa, Java Republic and Bewleys, and two commodity ones: La Scala (Bewleys again, but high volume and low quality) and Robert Roberts. You should note that the standard business model is that the supplier of beans to a restaurant also supplies and maintains equipment for free or a nominal rental; training of staff will also be required, again for free. Coffee brewing equipment is expensive - a pretty basic two group commercial espresso machine and grinder will cost at least €2,500 and high-end equipment will cost much more. Used commercial equipment is available for fractions of that price, and if you can find a competent maintenance engineer to work for you rather than contracting a company to do it you may find that repairing used equipment can save a lot of money.
 
Hi all,

Thanks for the valuable replies.
I would like to come back to the questions originally asked by Optimistic.
We are looking into importing coffee from Cameroon.
We would have the same set of questions, in particular in relation to import duty, VAT and logistics.

Any help/contacts would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

Best regards,
CaDe Ventures
 
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