Marek Vochozka

Institute of Technology and Business,

Ceske Budejovice, Czechia

E-mail: vochozka@mail.vstecb.cz 

ORCID 0000-0001-9923-7814

Changes in perception of coffee in EU: Luxury good becoming inferior good

Filip Petrách

Institute of Technology and Business,

Ceske Budejovice, Czechia

E-mail: 19651@mail.vstecb.cz 

ORCID 0000-0002-0487-2397

Svatopluk Janek

Institute of Technology and Business,

Ceske Budejovice, Czechia

E-mail: 26597@mail.vstecb.cz 

ORCID 0000-0003-4684-1078

Abstract. Coffee is a very popular commodity on a global scale. Its consumption is somewhat influenced by the fact that coffee is addictive and potentially harmful to health. Using price elasticity, income elasticity, and subsequent multiple regression, the demand function for coffee is formulated on a sample of the EU countries. Our findings confirm that in today´s Europe, coffee is considered an inferior good with almost perfect price inelasticity. This confirms the importance of coffee for everyday consumption, and at the same time, determines the awareness of potential health risks it possesses for consumers in the case of its excessive consumption. The obtained results could be applied in further analyses of coffee within the supply-demand chain, including new views on the heterogeneity of coffee as an economic asset.

Received: December, 2021

1st Revision: March, 2022

Accepted: July, 2022

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2022/15-3/14

JEL Classification: D01, D12

Keywords: coffee, price elasticity, income elasticity, demand, EU