Global coffee trade grinding to a halt, hit hard by brutal price hikes
Global coffee trade grinding to a halt, hit hard by brutal price hikes
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The coffee price hikes have stemmed from lower production in important coffee growing regions, particularly in top grower Brazil, reducing the availability of beans.
That's the closest I could find in the article as to a reason. It'd be nice to know if it was just a bad year or if this is going to be a permanent challenge going forward due to climate change or some other factors.
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Coffee is quite sensitive to environmental factors and only grows in certain specific regions as a result. Those factors are being upended by climate change. Coffee is going to very rapidly become a luxury product.
Billionaires don't care. Twenty dollars or two dollars for a cup is effectively the same price to them; insignificant. It's the rest of us that get fucked.
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Except we are nowhere near a situation like that. Articles like this don't tell the actual prices because they are so small people might start questioning why they pay so much for coffee.
The poll had a median forecast for arabica prices at the end of 2025 of $2.95 per pound, a drop of 30% from Wednesday's close and a loss of 6% from end-2024.
$3 per pound - $6 per kilo. Or to put it in another way, 4.8 cents per shot of espresso, two of which go in a 16 oz Starbucks latte that costs you $5.75, which would be enough money to buy 120 shots worth of bulk arabica.
If that goes up by 7% or 70% or 700%, the cost of that latte should hardly change.
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From what I've heard this is largely due to bad weather due to climate change, as I understand it, we should not expect coffee prices to ever go back to where they were.
For the past 4-5 years it seems prices have only gone up here. It's more than triple now of what it used to be before Covid, and that's only 5 years!But I'm not an expert, this is just what I've been seeing as a heavy coffee drinker in the supermarket, and what I've gathered from short news tid-bits.
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Pretty much. I watched my favorite coffee hut (literally a hut that you drive up to) go from $3 large like 5 years ago to $4, then within a year hit $5. At that point, I stopped going, although funny enough, i did go there today since it was convenient and it's now $5.50... I laughed and said yeah I'm definitely done now. As much as I like coffee, it's now a high-end luxury item that I can no longer afford even occasionally due to everything else raising as well.
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Coffee can be a pain to grow. As someone else mentioned, you have to have the right environment (rain, sunshine, soil, etc).
Adding to this is that it’s easier to grow other things that are in just as much demand. Vietnam has switched to growing durian fruit — less fussy and makes them just as much money.
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Coffee is also quite carbon intensive.
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It's also due to very bad weather/floods in the second largest producer, Vietnam.
And since extreme weather events are increasing in intensity and frequency, it's not going to get better (as a trend at least).
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First eggs, now coffee?
Man, my breakfast is getting real slim nowadays.
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Looking forward to price hikes far beyond the actual cost to middlemen. The eggification of another good.
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Already happened to chocolate. Raw cocoa is currently around 10% more expensive than it was at the same time last year - but chocolate products at retailers has shot up 40% or more. Including brands where cocoa isn't the dominant component ingredient like milk chocolate.
Yet businesses like Lindt are celebrating a 7.8% increase in sales... Make it make sense to me cos I buy far less now. Who are the people who see these increasing prices and buy more 🤡
Source data: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/cocoa
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Decades ago, in undergrad, I wrote a paper on recessions and the effects on everyday items. Oddly enough, the less money people have, the more likely that they will spend a tiny amount on luxury goods like chocolates. You add up all those people who buy small boxes of chocolates when they normally wouldn't, and you've got your uptick in sales.
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Finally! I'm so glad people are starting to realize just how much we're getting fucked.
"Product costs 5% more to bring to market? Better increase the price by 20%!"
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NNOOOOOOOO. Don't grind the market before you are ready to drink it! It'll lose all the freshness!!
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Caffeine tablets it is then... Oh wait I bet those are going to be affected too. Fun times
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Cocaine it is then.
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I picked the wrong week to quit methamphetamines.
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Fucking bummer. Everyone around me will crash and burn, and us non-coffee drinkers will rule the world!
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Lol, it only takes a few days to no longer have withdraw effects of caffeine. Some Ibuprofen and Tylenol will take care of the headache in the transition.
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It’s kind of a conspiracy theory of mine, but I’m trying to wean myself off coffee because I expect a price hike to come sooner or later. The majority of the Western world can’t get through the day without it, and I expect most people will still pay for it even when the price goes up.
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Time for everyone here to research: Chickory. Alternative to coffee and you can grow it at home.
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I'm just glad I quit coffee a year ago. I've known for a long time that coffee prices have been held artificially low and could explode at any moment.
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So, how much longer until we have to start drinking soycaf?
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Cut out the middle man. I just started roasting raw beans. Costs less than half as much as I was paying before and tastes better than I've ever had before.
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You've only cut out the roaster, which does nothing to solve your supply issues.
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He may be referring to how coffee shops (even the small ones!) will raises prices higher than their increase in inventory costs.
Right now, since people know coffee is getting more expensive, coffee shops (even the small ones!) will use that alone as an excuse to charge higher prices.
Keep in mind, these businesses (even the small ones!) charge what you are willing and able to pay. They are there to maximize profit off of you. It's not about being your friend. It's not about being on the same side. To think otherwise is to be a naive child and useful idiot.
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Global warming makes coffee harder to cultivate, that restricts the supply, hence the price hikes. I guess coffee is going to be a luxury item in the future.
While the world is focused on its own problems, far right populism, and what not, we are oversleeping a great opportunity to rein in global warming. With douchebags like Trump at the helm, the crisis is getting worse and worse. I guess the kids of our kids will read about this time in their history books and wonder how stupid and egocentric we were back then.
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