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Permalink Reply by Joshua Taves on June 24, 2010 at 3:34pm

I think that could be a good thing. do you know what coffee farmers are getting paid for their green beans? Average less than 3$/lb and in many cases less than 2$/lb. If you ask me thats attrocious considering you will pay 10-15$/lb in the U.S. And if you think about it the farmers are the ones that have to put in five to seven years of hard labor before they even get a full crop from their trees. I for one am willing to pay more per pound if it means bettering the circumstances of underprivileged farmers

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Permalink Reply by Clive Coffee on June 24, 2010 at 3:39pm

Here's a summary from Bloomberg: http://bit.ly/dep1FU. Production in Brazil and Colombia is down, but demand is still high. I guess that high demand is good for us, but ouch.

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Permalink Reply by Alun Evans on June 24, 2010 at 7:41pm

Josh, yeah it would be NICE if some of this 30% increase filtered down to farmers but, I can tell you for sure, it is not. The average farmer benefits not one iota from such fluctuations (unless the price is down). Those who make, at least on futures trading of coffee, are the big investment houses...no one at either end of the chain

Joshua Taves said:

I think that could be a good thing. do you know what coffee farmers are getting paid for their green beans? Average less than 3$/lb and in many cases less than 2$/lb. If you ask me thats attrocious considering you will pay 10-15$/lb in the U.S. And if you think about it the farmers are the ones that have to put in five to seven years of hard labor before they even get a full crop from their trees. I for one am willing to pay more per pound if it means bettering the circumstances of underprivileged farmers

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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on June 25, 2010 at 7:52am

Coffee commodity market a joke? A bad joke, but not as bad as it's been in recent past. Yesterday hit a high of $176.50 (per 100lb) yet back in March '08 spiked up to $195 then dropped spending most of '08 $150-$175 range before dropping in the Fall to $120-$130 range. Then all of '09 flunctuated up and down $120-$150. Remained $130-$150 range, mostly $130-$140 since Feb this year until middle of June when it started current increase.

Yeah it sucks for us roasters, my recent order for 10 bags placed Wednesday cost 29cents a LB more more than similar order four weeks ago, overall costing $382 more than would have four weeks ago. Fortunately I timed my buy when the market had just dropped to ~$158 before jumping back up again. And hell I'd just 2 weeks ago crunched numbers and adjusted my wholesale price list reducing prices across the board 10% to try and help struggling accounts. And now my latest cost of greens went up 17% compared to what they've averaged the past year. To make matters worse a 17% increase in greens equates to ~20% increase cost of roasted because of weight loss during roasting.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on June 27, 2010 at 7:52pm

Thanks Clive!

Clive Coffee said:

Here's a summary from Bloomberg: http://bit.ly/dep1FU. Production in Brazil and Colombia is down, but demand is still high. I guess that high demand is good for us, but ouch.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Dominy on June 28, 2010 at 9:21am

Most of this variance is based on speculations, and anytime something's price is based on specs, it will vary widely for no good reason other than the reason that someone thinks something will happen. There is a slight decrease in production, but demand worldwide has increased. That has driven some of the price increase, for sure. It is just like with oil, though, people are guessing what the weather will be, what crops may do, what farmers may do, and what consumers may do. And no, the farmers quite often, don't benefit from spec increases.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Leanne Barnett on June 28, 2010 at 12:16pm

I placed my last order with Cafe Imports right before it hit, and they actually informed me that it was increasing the next day. The sales reps there are mind-blowing at customer service. She tried to explain the C-market to me the best she could, I was also under the impression that the farmers would get the cut, but then realized that the coffee we're buying is for the most part already harvested, processed, and under ownership of brokers that determine the pricing.
It's really tough trying to configure the pricing fro here with new shipments of more expensive product, espcially since the product is no better, just higher in cost. For now I'm going to take the hit so my coffee shops can continue ordering at the same cost.
and yes, thanks for that link Clive!

This also gets me super motivated to find new family owned farm reps in the Southeast that I can purchase directly from. If anyone knows any, please let me know.

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