INTERNATIONAL COFFEE MARKET – Part One2 min read

The “Best Food Importers” website offers the only monthly updated global database of food importers and distributors which includes contact details and financial information. Furthermore, our website offers databases “by product”, one of them being the “Tea & Coffee Importers Database”, a comprehensive presentation of 2,295 companies from 87 countries, with instant access to complete details about companies: company name, address, phone number, fax, general e-mail address (for all companies), website and category of products imported for every company. Furthermore, for our dear readers, via this multi-part article, we shall offer an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the international coffee market, with more in-depth subjects to follow soon, in relation to the international coffee market, as well as the international tea market.

A brief study of the yearly averages of the International Coffee Organization composite price indicator, from here on referred to as ICO Composite, shows that coffee prices remain high when compared to those of the previous decade. But, as shown in the following graph, the international coffee market registered a sharp fall in overall prices in 2011-2012. the average of the ICO Composite fell from 205.65 US cents/lb during coffee year 2010-2011, to 169.82 US cents/lb during the coffee year 2011-2012, a procentual decrease of 17.4.

The reason of this downward correction is twofold. First of all, it can be largely attributed to an increase in coffee production, or, from a coffee importer standpoint, a normalization of the coffee supply. In the recent years, the coffee production has been afflicted by adverse meteorological conditions in certain producing countries, but all went well for the producers in the year 2011-2012. But we must not neglect the financial crisis that exerted itself as a background influence on all almost all the prices of commodities and the it’s specific negative influence on the international coffee market itself. This downward price trend expressed itself also on the stock-exchange. The indicator for the coffee futures market in New York registered a 20.8 percent decline from the coffee year 2010-2011 to the coffee year 2011-2012. On the London futures market, this particular indicator registered a 9.2 percent decline from the coffee year 2010-2011 to the coffee year 2011-2012.

In our next installment of this multi-part article, we shall remain focused on the issue of international coffee prices, with an in-depth analysis for each of the four main groups of coffee blends: Colombian Milds, Other Milds, Brazilian Naturals and Robustas.

Image courtesy of www.sxc.hu

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