The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Product decision · 1938
Nestlé, in 1938, turned Brazil's coffee surplus into storable soluble powder
Nestlé made Brazilian surplus coffee into a soluble powder, so an overflowing crop became a stable, storable product.
Nestlé
the move
The Wall Street Crash drove coffee prices down and left Brazil with a large surplus of green coffee. A crop with no buyer and a limited shelf life was heading for waste, and no one could store and ship it fast enough to use it all.
Nestlé took the problem on. Its scientists worked out how to extract coffee and turn it into a soluble powder that kept the flavour. The result, launched in Switzerland in 1938 as Nescafé, dissolved in boiling water and made a cup of coffee.
Soluble coffee changed the economics of the crop. It was far lighter and more compact than beans, packed into jars rather than sacks, and could be stored almost indefinitely without going stale. The surplus could now be held and moved instead of spoiling.
Rather than a glut of a perishable commodity, Nestlé had created a stable consumer product that absorbed the surplus and kept selling.
why it works
- Dehydration removes the water that drives spoilage, so the product stores far longer than raw beans.
- Powder is much lighter and denser than beans, cutting shipping weight and cost per cup.
- A sealed jar is easy to distribute to millions of retailers, unlike a raw agricultural commodity.
- Turning a farm glut into a branded product gives the producer an outlet for the surplus instead of a loss.
what transfers
When supply exceeds demand and the raw material perishes, change the raw material into something that waits — a stable form is worth more than a full harvest.
what came after
Nescafé became one of the world's largest coffee brands and helped normalize instant coffee, especially during the wars when it was supplied to troops. Nestlé later added freeze-dried coffee to capture more of the fresh flavour, and the idea of converting a perishable surplus into a stable product became a standard food-processing move.
references
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