coffee supply

so a lot of interesting things are happening in the coffee market. robusta coffee is about to have four straight years of shortages due to random droughts and floods in vietnam, which caused the market price of robusta to go higher than the base price of arabica. this, of course, made the price of arabica skyrocket because if arabica is cheaper, the big commercial cheap coffee companies who mostly use robusta will start dipping into arabica for their blends and cause a shortage of arabica. in the meantime, hedge funds saw an opportunity in the coffee chaos and started playing in the coffee market, pouring billions of dollars into it and pushing prices up and somewhat manipulating it in hopes of a shortage that would sustain the high market price. arabica coffee had a great year, there are no shortages of really good specialty coffee, and all is well with overall supply as long as the robusta buyers don't take too big of a slice. BUT it's supposed to be raining in Brazil by this point of the year, and it hasn't rained. if it doesn't rain, the coffee plants won't flower as well which will create an off-year for coffee in 2025. brazil of course is by far the biggest producer of arabica coffee, so if brazil has a bad harvest, the whole coffee market gets squeezed.

so based on robusta, hedge funds, and a dry brazil, arabica coffee prices hit a new year high last week and if it rains in brazil in the next 3 or 4 days, the price should collapse back down, but if it doesn't, there's no limit as to how high it could go in the short term. on friday, there was a very slight drizzle, and the market came down 10 cents.

extremely high quality coffees from africa and central america are coming in, and many more are in our pipeline, and we will for sure continue to have a selection of great coffee, but it's costing us a lot more than it used to.

we haven't raised prices in several years, and at current coffee pricing, we aren't making money. we lost money in august. september is ugly. at this point, our retail coffee prices are equal to what our competitors are pricing their wholesale coffee at. our wholesale coffee prices are unchanged from 2015 and almost a labor of love just to keep our wholesale accounts in business.

do a little rain dance if you know one, because if it rains in Brazil in the next couple of days it's going to be okay, but if it doesn't, both good and bad coffee is going to cost a lot more for the next year or two.