Costa Coffee and the experience of coffee consumption inspired three hundred artworks

The Costa Art & Craft competition, announced at the beginning of June and organized by Coca-Cola HBC Hungary, closes with the announcement of the results and a free exhibition open until Sunday evening. The competition for coffee-inspired creations attracted 300 entries, of which 40 were selected by the professional jury as finalists.  These 40 shortlisted artworks, including of course the winning entries, can be viewed free of charge at the Godot Gallery in Óbuda until Sunday evening on the occasion of World Coffee Day.

The Costa Art & Craft competition was open to any kind of new artwork inspired by coffee or coffee consumption that has not been exhibited before, without any genre restrictions, under the theme "The experience of coffee - ritual instead of routine". The Costa Coffee brand, which is refreshing its image and identity this year, has targeted creators with its competition because it believes that a new consumer base is becoming more distinct among coffee enthusiasts: they are the ritual artists whose everyday lives are infused with a desire to create.

A total of 300 entries were received for the competition, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, textile and leather designs, poems, musical compositions and even a play. Besides traditional creations, there was a separate category for artworks made partly or entirely with artificial intelligence. Seven of these creations are on display at the exhibition.

The task was not easy for the professional jury, but in the end a decision was made: the Best of Costa Grand Prize worth HUF 800,000 was won by Ditta Sarfenstein with her artwork entitled Much milk, little coffee, no sugar.

Apart from the main prize, special prizes were also awarded on this day: the Coca-Cola HBC Hungary Prize worth HUF 600,000 was awarded to Dani Juhász for his creation entitled Barista Fold. Two prizes were decided by the public, based on votes cast on Costa Coffee's social media page. The Audience Prize, worth HUF 600,000, was won by Márton Zöldi for his music piece called In café veritas, and the Artificial Intelligence and Skill Prize, worth HUF 250,000, was awarded to Vera Bakonyi-Tánczos for her short story Immersion and Connection (Elmélyülés és kapcsolódás).*

The average age of the applicants was 38, which means that coffee inspired this age group the most. A previous survey by Costa Coffee revealed that for 30-39 year olds, coffee is the second most important source of inspiration after listening to music. As people get older, coffee becomes more important - most people over 50 said that a good cup of coffee gave them new ideas and a boost to complete their tasks.

It is no wonder that coffee is such an important part of our lives: the value of the domestic retail coffee market (excluding instant coffee) was worth HUF 77 billion between the beginning of September 2023 and the end of August 2024, an increase of 0.9% compared to the same period a year before. At the same time, there was a shift between the different categories: the volume of ground coffee decreased by 3.7%, while the volume of beans coffee increased by 1.9% and capsule coffee by 5.1%. Over the 12 months ending in August 2024, producers and distributors sold a total of 14.3 thousand tons of beans, ground and capsule coffee on the domestic market.

The coffee inspired and recently awarded entries will be on display to the public until the evening of 6 October at Godot Gallery (1036 Budapest, Fényes Adolf street 21.) in the framework of a free exhibition.

* We paid particular attention to ensuring the fairness of the public vote on Costa Coffee's social media page, and after a thorough scrutiny of the results, we regrettably had to disqualify one applicant for using unfair means.