How business works and the stock market shouldn't have an effect on your daily cup of coffee, right?! Well, unfortunately it definitely does.
The C-market price of Arabica coffee reached it's all-time high of $3.44 per pound (which roughly translates to $7.58 per kilo, roughly R135/kg). Now, sweet coffee lovers, that is the price of the green coffee before anything else like transporting it half way around the world and roasting it with skill and packaging it and getting it to cafes and retail shelves. And it effects mainly the lower and average grade coffees that are specifically tied to the C-market price.
We do not fully understand all the economics of it, it's a complicated matrix of people panicking about future supply of coffee, but the bottom line is, your daily cup of coffee is about to go up substantially. Don't be mad with your barista or your local roaster, this is absolutely unavoidable. If you want to be mad, be mad at an antiquated system of financing where the rich get richer (or lose 'everything') and the farmers hardly ever see the benefits of any kind of increase on the C-market.
Jarrod Faber of Green Coffee Supply chatted to the Team at Cape Talk last week, as a person who imports coffee to the southern edge of Africa, he has some detailed insights to share about the confluence of events that have led to this point. This was recorded just before the price hit the all time high. You can listen here.
