Is coffee an outward sign of wealth? According to INSEE in any case, which publishes a study on household expenditure on drinksthe easier you are, the more you tend to drink coffee. And the less we are, the more we would drink sodas and cold drinks in general.
Thus INSEE notes that “in 2017, while the 20% of the wealthiest households devote a larger share of their beverage budget to hot drinks (+4.8 points compared to the average), the 20% of lower-income households target their spending on refreshing drinks more (+5 points). “
Coffee capsules too expensive?
Coffee is therefore more and more popular with the wealthy while poor households are turning away from it. Has coffee become too expensive? It is true that the appearance of coffee pods in the 2000s pushed up prices. A Nespresso capsule, for example, which contains 5 grams, increases the price per kilo of coffee to 62 euros against 15 euros on average for coffee beans. Hence the growing attraction of the French for coffee machines with grinder.
However, the price of coffee does not seem to be the real explanation. It would actually be more a question of generation. “The share of households with a young reference person is higher in low-income households than in all households,” explains INSEE. And they tend to dedicate a larger share of their non-alcoholic beverage budget to sodas as well as fruit juices. “Young people who consume more sodas and less coffee are generally poorer than the average French.
Coffee returns in the 2010s
Conversely, households over 65 naturally less consumers of sugary drinks but more coffee are generally more represented in the wealthiest categories. Hence the impression that the rich drink more coffee when it is mainly an effect of age rather than standard of living.
More generally, the share of the French budget devoted to non-alcoholic beverages has increased significantly in recent decades compared to alcohol. From 22% of the total drink budget in 1960, non-alcoholics are now over 40%. And it is the cold drinks that have won the most. The share of consumption of table water, flavored drinks and sodas, as well as fruit and vegetable juices, has risen sharply since 1960: in total, it reached 69.8% of the expenditure on non-alcoholic drinks in 2018.
The weight of fruit and vegetable juices increased mainly from the 1990s. Conversely, the share of hot drinks (coffee, tea and cocoa) has fallen sharply since 1960: by 71.2%, they represent more than 30.2% in 2018. A trend which was however reversed in the 2010s with the new attraction for coffee.
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