Originally posted on December 2, 2024. Global coffee prices have in late November 2024 soared to $3.3545 a pound for Arabica, the highest since March 1977, following weather concerns in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Robusta prices have been at a four-decade high since September 2024 due to supply pressure in Vietnam.
Despite falling to $3.181 a pound on November 29 at New York’s International Coffee Exchange (ICE), November 2024’s coffee futures are still unsurpassed. They still overreach the previous champs of March 1977 and May 1997 when prices were slightly below or above $3 per pound.
Arabica and Robusta
Both Arabica and Robusta beans are witnessing record prices due to concerns about the weather impact in Brazil and Vietnam.
In Brazil, two major contract traders have taken farmers to court for defaulting the delivery of 90,000 60-kg bags.
The pricing repercussions of this defaulting have spiraled onto the global market, recalling similar weather scenarios in the past.
In 1997 for instance, during the El Niño, the Arabica price had risen to near the $3-per-pound mark.
Twenty years earlier in 1977, they had reached an unprecedented $3.01 a pound in March that year.
In the course of 2024, Arabica prices have soared by 71%, rivaling the tripling of cocoa prices amid falling inventories.
On their part, Robusta prices have never been pricier in nearly 5 decades. The beans cost at their highest in mid-September 2024 at $5,829 a tonne, in London’s futures market.
Although by November 28 the prices had simmered down 1.5% to $5,200 a tonne, they were still quite expensive.
East African farmers on the Map
As Brazil confronts weather odds, alternative sources in East Africa such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia are cashing in.
The horn of Africa region is welcoming a staggering global demand shift and is lucratively filling in the gap.
In Kenya, for instance, the price climb has coincided with the harvest, which normally takes place between October and December.
The country has recorded a 27% improvement in sales in November 2024 worth $4.2 million, the strongest since January.
In a word, international coffee prices have strengthened to a multi-decade apex. Analysts even predict that in 2025 they could inch up by 25%. To put this into context, below is a coffee pricing history statistics from a worldwide vantage point.
Global Coffee Prices Historical Statistics
Coffee production in the world is concentrated in the tropics, from East Africa to South America and southeast Asia. East Africa (except Uganda) and Latin America (except Mexico) predominantly produce Arabica beans while southeast Asia’s Vietnam and Indonesia produce Robusta. Because global coffee volumes constitutes 70% Arabica and 30% Robusta, the shortage of each affects the pricing of both. Below is a pricing history of these two combined coffees, based on the monthly averages at Macrotrends.
1973: coffee cost as little as $0.65 per pound on October 8, without adjusting inflation.
1975: On April 21, coffee bottomed out to $0.47 a pound while later on it would again touch $0.52 and $0.53.
1977: the first breaking point of coffee pricing was $3.13 per pound on March 8, 1977, a high that would remain for decades.
1985: another pricey year was 1985, with the high point at $2.85 a pound on December 30.
1992: the fourth lowest point for coffee between 1973 and 2024 took place on August 3, 1992, at just $0.56 a pound.
1997: on May 19, the price rose sharply to $2.57 a pound, the highest since 1994, and would verge on $3 a pound.
2001: the fifth lowest price since 1973 was on October 8, at $0.45 a pound.
2011: it would take 10 years since 2001 for coffee to rally back to $2.88 a pound, on April 11, 2011.
2024: on November 29, coffee hits $3.26 a pound, the highest since March 1977.