Colombia Coffee Logo Source Colombia Coffee Growers Producers Association NFC Story Logo Xu

To fully understand the source of the Colombian coffee logo, let's first take a look at the background information of the Colombian coffee industry. Coffee is one of the main industries in Colombia. It is the second largest coffee producer in the world, with about 560000 employees working in the coffee industry. Colombian coffee is exported to many European countries as well as to Japan and the United States. Colombian coffee growers have a long history of developing strategies to protect and promote their products.

Although the first commercial production of Colombian coffee began in the first half of the 19th century, the establishment of the Colombian Coffee Federation (Federaci ó n Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, FNC) in 1927 really brought vitality to the industry and led to the expansion of the international market for Colombian coffee. Since its inception, FNC has been successful in managing farmers and ensuring their legitimate interests.

In the late 1950s, due to oversupply on the world market, the price of Colombian coffee plummeted from $0.85 to $0.45 per pound. The market is dominated by coffee roasters who mix coffee beans from a variety of unspecified sources into their products to provide themselves with the flexibility to maximize profit margins. As a result, public awareness of the origin of coffee is very low. In the United States, the largest coffee market at the time, only 4% of consumers knew that Colombia produced coffee. The Federation of growers (FNC) believes that this situation must be changed. FNC realized that this problem can only be solved if consumers know where the coffee comes from. As a result, Colombia became the first coffee producing country to begin to implement a positive strategy to differentiate and market its products.

FNC first posted a face on Colombian coffee-literally. With the help of an advertising agency in New York, FNC created Juan Valdez ®, a fictional character in a wide-brimmed hat and holding his mule Conchita, representing a typical Colombian coffee grower. In television commercials in North America in the 1960s, Juan Juan Valdez, with a faithful mule, carefully selected and hand-picked the most mature coffee beans in a coffee field. Consumers began to respond to the message that Colombian beans were planted and harvested very carefully in the ideal climate of abundant Rain Water, sunny and fertile volcanic soil, with little machine help. Demand is growing. Many coffee roasters began to market their products as Colombian coffee. According to Mr. Luis Fernando Samper, the creation of Juan Valdez roles

Having established its reputation and created demand for Colombian coffee beans, the next challenge for FNC is to let consumers know that the brands they see on store shelves contain 100% real Colombian coffee. Registering the word Colombian coffee as a trademark itself is not an option because it is a description of geographical origin. Instead, in the early 1980s, FNC designed and registered the now familiar Juan Valdez logo. The plan is to license the logo to roasters for their own brand of products that include only Colombian coffee. "We have a trademark-based component brand strategy," Mr. Samper explained, "just like using the 'Intel inside' logo on computers today."

To be licensed to use the Juan Valdez trademark, the product must consist of 100% Colombian coffee and meet the quality standards set by the Coffee Growers Association.

Although the principle is reasonable, this trademark-based approach certainly cannot compel roasters interested in selling Colombian coffee to obtain permission for the logo. It turns out that many coffee roasters and marketers are reluctant to meet the conditions of a trademark license agreement that allows them to use Juan Valdez ingredient brands with their own product brands. Therefore, a supplementary strategy is designed to capture this market segment. The Republic of Colombia, in cooperation with FNC, has registered the word "Colombian" related to coffee as a certification mark in the United States and Canada. According to FNC, all Colombian coffee is 100% washed Arabica coffee. In order to ensure quality, FNC launched a farmer training program in 1959, which continues. A team of approximately 1000 coffee experts and technicians regularly visits, trains and updates Colombian coffee growers to learn about issues related to quality maintenance and the latest technologies for coffee cultivation. The formal standards attached to these certification marks now guarantee that market participants will meet the minimum quality standards when selling Colombian coffee, thus protecting its hard-won reputation.

By 2004, a survey conducted by KRC Research, a Washington-based market research firm, showed that consumer awareness of Colombia as a coffee grower had climbed to 91 per cent or more in major markets such as Canada, the United States and Spain, and reached a very high level in other major consumer markets. As far away as China, recognition has risen to 72%. However, it is not easy to prove the route. FNC finds it difficult and expensive to enforce their certification trademarks in North America, and their lawyers must make regular representations to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to prevent trademark registration that includes the word Columbia, which gives brand owners the right to sell products that contain little or no Colombian coffee. "We have to oppose a large number of trademark applications," Mr. Samper explained, "and make sure that the coffee sold in Colombian coffee is indeed 100% Colombian coffee. It's a tough job! Each test can cost us $500, while supplementary chemical tests used to analyze coffee ingredients are even more expensive. We ended up investing in technology to test it ourselves. "

In addition, neither trademark nor certification trademark necessarily prevents the use of words such as Colombian mixed or Colombian type.