Starbucks to develop coffee farm in China

US coffee chain Starbucks Corporation is developing its own coffee farm in southwestern China in order to secure a supply of quality beans in the company’s second-most important market.

Seattle-based Starbucks said it would hire coffee growers in the southwestern province of Yunnan to plant Arabica seeds in the first quarter of next year for harvest by 2014.

“Our investment in this coffee-growing region demonstrates our ongoing commitment to build China into our second home market outside of the US,” Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz said in a statement.

Starbucks has 400 stores in mainland China and aims to open 1,000 more in coming years, the company said, adding China would soon overtake Canada, Japan and Britain as its second-largest market after the United States.

Starbucks’ revenue jumped to $10.7 billion this year, up 9.5 per cent from 2009. International store sales increased six per cent, the company said, but declined to give specific information on its China growth.

Schultz said he hoped the quality and quantity of the Yunnan-grown coffee would be high enough to sell in China and around the world, as a single-origin coffee that did not need to be blended with beans from elsewhere.

The Yunnan provincial government plans to invest three billion yuan ($451.5 million) to increase coffee production to 200,000 tonnes from 38,000 tonnes over the next decade, the statement said.