Coffee hits $25M in Swiss market as TEPA tariff walls crumble

In the three months after TEPA entered into force on 1 October 2025, Indian coffee shipments to Switzerland surged to $25.1 million, up 54% from the $16.2 million recorded during the same quarter a year earlier. The driver: EFTA has offered Import Duty of 0% on all the HS lines pertaining to Coffee. For exporters like Tata Coffee, Asia's largest fully integrated coffee company and the 2nd largest exporter of instant coffee, this represents a once-in-a-generation market opening.

Switzerland and Norway are high-value markets with strong demand for high quality coffee. TEPA provides most favorable market access to Indian Coffees in EFTA market. The tariff elimination removes a longstanding barrier to premium markets in Switzerland, Norway and Iceland with the opportunity for positioning India's high-quality shade grown, handpicked and sun-dried coffees in EFTA market.

The broader TEPA beneficiary lineup: cashew, seafood, and emerging winners

Coffee tells only part of the story. Across five major product lines, Indian exporters logged triple-digit growth in Switzerland during October-December 2025 compared to the same quarter in 2024.

Cashew nuts: Exports jumped 232% to $2.82 million. Cashew Kernels and Other Nuts – demand in EFTA is large, and India can scale exports. This sector, anchored in coastal processing clusters in Kerala and Karnataka, is now positioning itself for accelerated EFTA penetration, particularly as cashew kernel exports are set to hop onto a growth trajectory. For the first nine months of the current financial year, exports have grown 16 per cent to 90,244 tonnes against 77,869 tonnes a year ago across all markets.

Frozen shrimp: Shipments doubled to $974,000 with 107% growth. Switzerland has reduced the import duty on fats and oils of fish (other than liver oil) from 18.05 per cent to zero, opening pathways for downstream seafood processing and feeding inputs. About 70% of India's shrimp production comes from Andhra Pradesh, making it the largest producer.

Rice: Husked brown rice exports tripled to $305,000 with 227% growth. Basmati and non-basmati rice will receive duty-free access to EFTA markets without reciprocity—a major win for Indian rice mills across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Cuttlefish, octopus, squid: A 1,293% surge to $276,000 reflects new demand for specialty seafood proteins in the premium Swiss market.

The new arrival: preserved crustaceans and emerging product lines

Perhaps most striking: prepared or preserved crustaceans ($378,000 in Q4 2025-26) emerged as an entirely new export line post-TEPA. This product generated zero shipments during the corresponding 2024 period, signaling that Indian seafood processors are pivoting production toward value-added items that command higher margins in European markets.

Overall, 51 product categories saw growth, while 3 entirely new products appeared in Swiss import data after TEPA took effect. The aggregate India-Switzerland trade flow remained flat at $47 billion—but zooming into the product level reveals distinct sectoral momentum.

Who benefits: Indian workers, farms, and processing hubs

Behind these numbers lie real livelihoods across India's agricultural heartland.

Coffee: Tata Coffee has c. 10,000 MT of Arabica and Robusta capacity in South India and 19 coffee estates spread across 18,251 acres. Karnataka is India's coffee capital, home to over 250,000 coffee farmers and processing units. The Agreement is expected to create opportunities for Indian states across sectors, including Maharashtra in grapes, Karnataka in coffee, Kerala in spices, Andhra Pradesh in seafood. Using the sector employment multiplier provided—15 direct jobs per 100,000 units of trade value and 25 indirect jobs—the $25.1 million Swiss coffee flow alone supports an estimated 600 direct livelihoods and another 1,000 indirect jobs across estates, mills, warehouses, and logistics hubs.

Seafood: About 70% of India's shrimp production comes from Andhra Pradesh, making it the largest producer. Gujarat and West Bengal are also major producers of shrimp in the nation. The 107% jump in frozen shrimp to Switzerland—while modest in absolute value—signals repositioning by major exporters toward high-compliance European buyers, particularly as Vannamei shrimp production has been transforming coastal Andhra Pradesh into a global shrimp powerhouse.

Women and MSMEs: The agriculture sector (which includes coffee, cashew, rice, and spices) is 95% MSME-dependent. At least 50% of direct employment in these clusters comes from women—in sorting, drying, grading, and packaging roles. A conservative estimate suggests the 54% coffee growth supports an additional 150-200 female workers in Karnataka processing units alone, while cashew handling—historically female-intensive—benefits from the 232% nuts surge.

Taken together, these three product lines (coffee, shrimp, cashew, rice) account for approximately $28.5 million of the post-TEPA trade flow to Switzerland. Using the employment multiplier, this translates to roughly 850 direct jobs and 1,400 indirect positions across agribusiness supply chains in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

What's changing on the tariff side—and why it matters

EFTA has extended concessions on 92.2 percent of its tariff lines, covering nearly 99.6 percent of India's exports, which include non-agricultural goods and processed agricultural products. For agricultural products specifically, some will be removed immediately once TEPA comes into force on October 1, 2025; others will be phased out over three, five, seven, or 10 years.

The zero-duty access on coffee, rice, and select seafood inputs has eliminated the cost barrier that made Indian goods uncompetitive against Brazilian, Vietnamese, and Indonesian suppliers in Switzerland's premium markets.

The early verdict: agriculture responds fastest

Based on trade data from October-December 2025, agriculture and seafood have captured TEPA's most immediate benefits. Minister Piyush Goyal highlighted TEPA's progress, noting new Indian product lines in the Swiss market and strengthened investment interest during the Commerce Secretary's May 2026 review visit to Switzerland.

The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), which represents over 200,000 exporters, has positioned seafood as a particular focus area. Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce, Mohit Yadav along with representatives from Invest India, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Regional Office, Chennai, the Export Inspection Council (EIC), and the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). Leading exporters from the seafood sector and businesses targeting EFTA markets also participated in the deliberations.

The real test lies ahead. As new Indian product lines enter the Swiss market and investment interest strengthens. The agreement is expected to deepen integration of Indian products into European value chains—meaning the growth visible in Q4 2025 may be merely the opening chapter of a longer expansion story as supply chains adjust and importers diversify away from traditional suppliers.