KEY POINTS:
The battle to supply Kiwis with their morning flat white or latte is reaching fever pitch, with New Zealand now boasting among the highest number of coffee companies per capita in the world.
More than 140 different roasters are fiercely competing for their share of the ever more
discerning local coffee market.
Big advertising budgets, aggressive billboard campaigns and high profile sponsorships are all part of the battle for coffee drinkers' attention.
Earlier this year, the Herald on Sunday reported that a BP television commercial for Wild Bean coffee had to be changed after it showed someone spitting out the contents of a cup that looked suspiciously like local roaster Allpress' typical takeaway cup.
Now, a billboard campaign by roaster Gravity is taking a swipe at franchise coffee stores and petrol stations selling freshly made coffee.
One billboard snipes that "espresso does not come in small, medium and large".
Another, cheekily sited next to a petrol station, says, "Gravity is coffee for people who go to petrol stations in order to buy petrol."
Considerable kudos is also now attached to sponsorship of high-profile events - there was reportedly a bunfight over the sponsorship rights to New Zealand Fashion Week, with Allpress triumphing as the official coffee.
It's all part of an intensifying advertising war as New Zealanders become picky about their coffee.
"People are getting quite discerning," Michael Guy, director of the NZ Coffee Festival and Awards, explains. There are now 140 to 150 coffee roasting companies, a number which has grown by at least 30 in the past two years.
Guy claims that gives New Zealand one of the highest rates of coffee roasters per capita in the world.
"Before, people might have had a choice of three or four brands of fresh ground coffee in supermarkets, but now they might have seven or eight to choose from."
And that means branding is all-important. "Cafes and coffee have become like people's aspirations; the same as they might like to drive a BMW, they see a certain coffee as a premium brand and that's the coffee they drink," Guy says.
Robert Harris still has the largest share of the fresh and ground coffee market, with 37 per cent, according to this year's Nielsen Panorama survey of household shoppers, but other smaller roasters hold their own niches: Cafe L'Affare has 10 per cent, Faggs 6 per cent, and Vittoria 4 per cent.
Stuart MacIntosh of Cerebos Gregg's, which owns Robert Harris, says greater consumer knowledge of products has meant changes in preference, and the company has expanded its range to meet that need.
"There is coffee available in more places now than there used to be. Overall consumption is increasing, and it's easier to get it, whether it's a convenience store or a cafe."
Because the regular cafe-goer might not notice a difference in tastes between the coffees, Guy says the industry advertises in magazines such as Metro and Cuisine and uses billboards to build brands and hook in consumers.
Chris Brown, marketing manager for Burton Hollis, of which Gravity is a part, says its billboard campaign shows the funny, irreverent brand the company wants to promote in a "very competitive market".
"The crux of the campaign is explaining to people who we're not, and therefore showing who we are. You can't buy our products at service stations, you can't buy it at a global franchise coffee place."
Brown says the market has grown hugely, particularly in premium roast and ground coffee.
"I think people are getting more savvy about what coffee they are drinking. It's a bit like the wine industry in the 1980s: people learned more about it, and got into it more, and I think people are doing the same with coffee."
Guy, who is the publishing editor of Cafe magazine, has also noted an increase in the number of people buying coffee machines to make espresso-style coffee at home.
International Coffee Council figures show that New Zealand coffee consumption has steadily increased since 1980, from just 97,000 bags of coffee a year to more than 245,000 in 2004.
And the number of coffee roasters is still growing: coffee roasting businesses are starting in places that have never had them before - Gisborne, Kaikohe and Coromandel have recently gained local coffee brands.
