A price rise that’ll wake you up

By Lachlan Ellis

It seems not even our beloved coffee is safe from inflated prices, with increased overheads blamed for a predicted price hike of up to $7.50 for a regular cup.

Soaring shipping costs, and a cold snap in Brazil – which produces around 40 per cent of the world’s coffee – have been blamed for an increase in costs which local roasters and cafes are already feeling.

Earlier this month, President of the Café Owners and Baristas Association of Australia, David Parnham, told the ABC that, compared to two years ago, shipping containers were now “nearly five times the price…due to global shortages of containers and ships to be able to take things around the world”.

And while his company is feeling the pinch, owner of Gordon coffee roasters Karon Farm Coffee, Luke McPherson, said he wasn’t expecting coffee to reach the $7 – $7.50 a cup quoted by some sources, anytime soon.

“I can’t see cafes charging $7.50 a cup, I don’t think they’d pass on that sort of price rise. The way it’s affecting us, the price of our green coffee, so our raw coffee, has risen from June last year by $5.61 [a kilo] on average, which is about a 50 per cent price rise,” he told the Moorabool News.

“We have recently passed on a $2 a kilo increase in price, which doesn’t really even cover half of the price rise. But I’m crossing my fingers that the price starts to equalise a bit and starts to come down. I’m not a coffee bean trader, but it’s a bit like the stock market, it fluctuates up and down through the year.”

Smaller roasters will be hit earlier due to shorter-term contracts, McPherson added, with larger roasters able to capitalise on longer contracts drawn up before the price rise.

To read the full story – Simply click on the following link

https://issuu.com/themooraboolnews/docs/mn_2022-04-12/12

in the 12 April 2022 edition
OR
pick up a paper around your town.