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Permalink Reply by Joshua Longsdorf on September 8, 2010 at 1:25pm

Expect to see them climb for a while longer. The amount of coffee being consumed in the world is growing faster every year. It's what is called a seller's market. I myself am glad to see that coffee growers that aren't working with responsible roasters might finally make a little money.

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Wray on September 8, 2010 at 6:39pm

I really highly doubt that the farmers who aren't working with responsible roasters will see any increased profit at all. It doesn't have to do so with coffee consumption, more influential is that Vietnam is stockpiling a large amount of it's coffee, driving the prices up. Brazil is probably going to follow suit. I believe we will see another market crash this time next year if things continue happening the way that they currently are.

As far as I can tell, this is really bad for everyone in the chain. I would love for someone to have facts that would change my mind.

-bry

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Permalink Reply by Derryl Reid on September 8, 2010 at 6:52pm

I have to agree with Bryan

It not a sellers market more of a speculators market! in my opinion.

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Permalink Reply by Matt B on September 10, 2010 at 5:32am

Investors have to find a place for their money. The stock market is iffy, and interest rates are at all-time lows, so $ goes into commodities, like coffee. I would guess that some growers do realize a little more $, though--mills need green, the going rate is higher, and stocks have to be replaced. But overall quality goes down. Counterproductive in the long run. I read somewhere of an old saw about the comm. market: "eats like a bird, $#its like an elephant." This is a time of year when supply is low, esp. given the shortage of Centrals. If the elephant doesn't make some sort of an appearance when Brazils, etc. start showing up, who knows. The rise isn't completely logical, but it seems to me that it's not simply speculation, b/c there just aren't a lot of other places for money people to invest. The market's more of a haven than an opportunity to flip. Given the crappy economy, we might be in this territory for a while. But I'm no expert.

Sure is tough to pull the trigger on spot coffees that are sixty cents more expensive than they were in June. They're not getting any better, lol.

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Permalink Reply by Jay Caragay on September 10, 2010 at 5:39am

It's a concern - especially if you're "locked" into your retail prices. However, this might be the right opportunity to base your retail pricing off of your wholesale costs instead of by whatever your competitors are charging.

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Permalink Reply by Benjamin Turiano on September 23, 2010 at 6:57am

This isn't just a trend with coffee, the entire agricultural industry is experiencing a similar shift. While things like Vietnam stockpiling certainly play a role in this, there are other global factors to consider. (Such as the rising value of oil, water, and land)

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Permalink Reply by greg costello on September 23, 2010 at 3:04pm

our green usage is insignificant, no really insignificant and it is really stressing us. Suddenly green prices are rolling up hard and shippers can point to the market regardless of when green was bought. This is not good for specialty coffee as the pace of change is making players in production process all add in a bit of fat incase tehy get caught out or miss out on some extra profit because of market movement.

Our real invoice change seems with or above the market and Ive heard of traders being caught out 100's, I'll repeat that.....100's of thousands because people sitting on green stock can see if they just fail to deliver on an agreed futures contract they can make loads more on todays open market. When this sort of thing goes on nothings said. Where is your poor farmer cliche in this (anyway if any money drips down to farmer you can be rest assured only job security will drip down to hte migrant workers doing the picking)

Someone else commented that its not coffee its agriculture which is more interesting and correct. Ever since Russia said "Yeah....no wheat export" the bump in commodoty prices there showed the vulnerability in the whole market and so on and so on. Makes you wonder about the Algorithmes running investing these days. The formulas will know their is a % avg relationship between sugar cotton, wheat, coffee etc. When those % don match up within standard diviations ......what happens.....do the computers buy sell whir until normative ranges reset....? interesting times. Glad we are no bigger than we are.

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