Confinement has changed habits consumption rate of coffee drinkers. No more small espresso around the corner in the morning, after dinner in the cafeteria or during a break around the machine with colleagues. Coffee consumption has collapsed in businesses and the hospitality industry. At the same time, it is in very strong progression at home according to figures published in the Echo.
The Belgian still drinks so much
For Nespresso, of the Nestlé group, the Horeca and businesses are big customers. Their closure could have been a disaster, not to mention the closure of their own shops, 8 in Belgium. “We lost 80% of our out-of-home sales deplores Oliver Perquy, CEO in Belgium and Luxembourg. People were barely in the office, no longer went to restaurants and in addition there were no longer trips between home and work, so take-out sales also fell. “
Coffee has become a little pleasure
On the other hand, people, teleworking from home, continued to drink their coffee. “There has been a real shift. While our out-of-home sales fell, we had an incredible increase in consumption at home rejoices the boss of Nespresso. “For some, alone at home all day, coffee has become a little pleasure. I believe there are people who have drunk more at home than they do in the office. Me, personally, I switched to larger cups for example. Our online sales have, in any case, doubled. It completely made up for the losses elsewhere. In the end, for us, it wasn’t a disaster at all“With online sales, this shift in consumption is therefore accompanied by a shift in sales channels.
With stores closed, e-commerce takes off
Nespresso already had a well-established online sales system before the crisis. With the closures of their physical stores and the increase in consumption by individuals at home, Internet sales have therefore increased significantly. And they are still much larger today than they were before containment. “It makes us think, like a lot of other companies, about how we are going to work tomorrow. Will teleworking become the norm? It will have an influence on the coffee consumption. I think that the return to normal in the Horeca will take a long time and I believe that there will be something left of this increase in consumption at home“.
During confinement, the affection of the company’s human resources has also followed the slippage in consumption. The sales staff of closed shops have been reassigned to e-commerce to follow demand. Enough to suggest the reconfiguration of the market of tomorrow.
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