Coffee Prices and Value for Money

LMSC

Warning - Long Rant

I’ve been thinking about what I’m actually paying for coffee now, and looking back at my own buying patterns, there is a clear shift.

During Covid, I was often paying around £6 per 100g for light or medium-light filter coffee. Then £7-£8 per 100g started to feel more normal, especially for 250g bags. Now, for the coffees I tend to buy, I’m seeing more like £9-£10 per 100g.

At that price, I can’t help but think about the value factor. A coffee that is just good or nice is becoming harder to justify for us. It needs to at least leave me thinking, “we really enjoyed drinking that”, even if it is not a full wow experience. Otherwise, it starts to feel like an expensive average experience.

Buying a kilo makes more sense on paper, but the risk is also higher. If the coffee turns out average, you are stuck with a lot of it.

I look at international coffee prices as part of my job, so I’ve been watching the wider market too. It explains some of what is happening, but not all of it. The ICE Coffee C contract, which is the global benchmark for Arabica, had a big rally through the 2024/25 coffee year. It moved from around $143+ cents/lb in Oct 2023 to $440+ cents/lb in Feb 2025, which is roughly a 206% increase, before losing around 45% by June this year.

Some of the notable reasons were supply-chain pressure, market volatility, and concerns around Brazilian drought, which eased as the region had good rainfall.

Looking at asset market prices generally, I do think coffee prices could gradually firm up again towards the levels seen in 2025. That is just my view, not a certainty.

What is interesting is that the drop in green coffee prices has not really shown up clearly at retail level yet.

The Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index is useful here. The average retail price for roasted specialty coffee rose 3.9% to $32.75/lb, which shows the disconnect quite well: green prices can fall, but bag prices do not necessarily follow quickly.

There are fair reasons for that lag. Roasters may be working through long-dated green contracts, or coffee bought when prices were higher. They also still have rent, energy, wages, packaging, finance costs, shipping, import costs and VAT to deal with. There is probably also a replacement-cost issue: commodity prices are volatile, so a roaster may price based on what the next coffee might cost, not just what the current coffee cost.

It would be genuinely interesting to hear from roasters like @BlackCatCoffee and @LeefromFoundryCR on how they approach green buying, contracts and pricing.

But from the home barista side, that only goes so far. If a 200g bag is effectively £18-£20, and the cup is only good rather than memorable, the real value is not there.

My take is pretty simple: I understand why prices went up. Arabica had a serious rally, and the supply chain was under pressure. But if green prices have dropped from the highs and retail prices stay elevated, then the coffee quality has to justify the price, IMO.

For light and medium-light filter, “nice” does not add enough value at £9-£10 per 100g. I want clarity, expression of notes, or at least that feeling of wanting to reach for another cup. It does not always have to be wow, but it needs to be more than just fine.

Of course, no one is forcing us to buy. That’s not the point. Or is it?

What do you guys think? What’s your take on coffee prices vs quality vs value for money? 😊

https://ico.org/resources/coffee-market-report-statistics-section/

Some interesting read, should it interest anyone!

https://www.ice.com/products/15/Coffee-C-Futures/data

https://www.transactionguide.coffee/reports

https://www.comunicaffe.com/coffee-futures-prices-at-historic-highs-during-the-2024-25-coffee-year/

https://www.ice.com/products/15/Coffee-C-Futures/data

https://ico.org/resources/public-market-information/

https://ico.org/resources/coffee-market-report-statistics-section/

KC US Coffee C ICE futures, Investing.com for charts

dfk41

I agree with your thoughts. I went from espresso blends costing £20 a kilo delivered to coffee costing over £100 a kilo if bought in 200gm bags or £63 if bought as a kilo. I have not counted the actual costs I have incurred. My point is the absolute nonsense a lot of tasting notes are.

What makes a coffee expensive? Is it exclusivity or taste? Take Jamaican Blue Mountain. Average annual production of recent is a reported 600 metric tonnes. This means how good or bad the coffee is is irrelevant. Take wine. If someone discovers a case of some long forgotten red wine, the price it sells for is based on exclusivity. The wine itself might be awful, but the concept…..

So prices are on the up. Take potatoes. Every year around about March stocks of cheaper old potatoes run out. Fish and chip shops switch to new potatoes and the cost of chips shoots up. But then in September when they switch back to old potatoes the prices do not come down again.

If you are paying £8 to £10 per 100 gm, should you have an expectation? I think so.

LMSC

dfk41

At £9-£10 per 100g, I would expect it to be “very good” at the least.

Exclusivity definitely pushes prices up, but rarity and taste are not always the same thing. Some coffees cost more because there is less of them, not because they are better in the cup. For me, if the price is premium, the drinking experience needs to feel premium too. 😊

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC It would be genuinely interesting to hear from roasters like @BlackCatCoffee and @LeefromFoundryCR on how they approach green buying, contracts and pricing.

I’m not sure I even know where to start! - there’s a lot here. I suppose I’d make a few points that might hopefully contribute to the conversation.

The C price is not generally all that relevant for the coffee that we buy (in a direct way at least) - so even at the (extremely unusual) peak of the C price increase last year - green coffee sold at that price was still selling for a lot less than any coffee we have bought for years. There can be many indirect effects to C price fluctuations of course - e.g if a farmer can get such a high price for her coffee, regardless of the quality, there is little incentive to spend extra money on good quality picking, processing and all that stuff - so it can make more sense for the farmer to save all that money on what could have potentially been speciality grade coffee and just get it moved quicker and easier on the commodity market. This means less speciality coffee coming to the market, so a general upwards pressure eon prices.

I’d go further and say that the green price in general is probably not as big a factor as you’d expect in retail pricing of coffee - all the other stuff you mentioned has a much bigger impact - energy costs, shipping, packaging, labour etc etc have all gone up a huge amount over the past few years.

Having said that, I’ve definitely seen the same general price inflation stuff with green coffee. The market gets used to shocks and adapts, and prices then don’t tend to come back down.

We’ve always had a fairly flexible approach to pricing. We sometimes buy coffee that turns out to be ‘cheap’ - i.e. the quality is much higher than we expected it to be for the price that we paid. Those coffees we’ll sell for higher margins, because it’s worth it and we do that because the reverse also happens (more often!!) i.e. coffee we have agreed to buy arrives and the quality isn’t as good as it was at harvest (for all sorts of reasons) and so we end up selling that coffee at much lower margin - because it’s not worth the price we would charge based on the green cost alone. Even this year, we’ve sold lots where we’ve barely broken even.

It’s a complex issue but I’m happy to answer questions as best I can.

LMSC

Thanks Lee, that’s really helpful. It gives a much better sense of what actually drives retail pricing.

It does make me wonder whether green coffee cost is only a fairly small part of the final retail bag price once everything else is included. Maybe there is an incentive for home baristas to start roasting their own coffee after all. Haha.

On the C price, my understanding is that it is exchange-grade commercial Arabica, not specialty coffee. So it should act more like a market reference price rather than a direct guide to what specialty coffee should cost.

We know the current C price is sitting much lower than the 2025 peak. But if current green prices are still much lower than what you guys have been paying for years, then the C price clearly doesn’t reflect the kind of coffees you buy, even if I look at the continuous adjusted futures price over 25 years. I’m curious why that gap is so wide.

I would expect specialty coffees, microlots, Gesha, high-scoring washed lots and similar coffees to sell above the C price. So in my head, C is the floor or reference point, not the full specialty price. But your point about current green prices makes me think I am missing something here.

I also really appreciated your point about pricing flexibility based on how the coffee actually cups when it arrives. If I understood correctly, you might take a better margin on a coffee that overdelivers for its green cost, but accept a lower margin on a coffee that doesn’t cup as well as expected. That’s a really interesting insight.

One other thing I’m curious about: if prices have gone up, like with most food items, why does quality not always feel consistent with the higher price? Is it mostly because costs across the board have risen and are being reflected in retail pricing, rather than because green quality itself has improved?

Are you seeing any noticeable improvement in green coffee quality? I know we’re seeing a lot more experimental processing now, probably as an effort to get more expression and value out of the beans, for better or worse.

I also wonder why farmers would risk genuinely good-quality beans with advanced processing techniques like anaerobic fermentation, rather than using those methods to improve or maximise value from more average lots.

I’m sure they wouldn’t risk their entire harvest on experimental processing either. I’d imagine they would only apply these techniques to selected lots where the potential upside is worth it, rather than putting their best or full crop at risk.

Clodius

What’s the alternative? Don’t drink coffee, or buy from coffee shops, which is tied to the speculative commodity market anyway.

I try to keep the price per kg under £30 (or £35 if it’s worth trying). I used to convince myself my palate wasn’t developed enough to justify the cost. However, I recently picked up a supermarket coffee I drank for two years before switching to specialty, and I could barely finish it, even though I only drink lattes. The same thing happened with a darker roast where the bitterness dominated. Once you get used to specialty, going back is hard, which makes £30/kg feel like good value.

LMSC

Clodius £30/kg for light or medium-light filter feels like winning the lottery these days 😂 I’d probably buy it, frame the invoice, and tell people I found a glitch in the coffee economy. Sadly I don’t drink milk-based drinks either. Filter gives nowhere to hide. Ask @dfk41 his recent filter experience! 🫣😂

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC Maybe there is an incentive for home baristas to start roasting their own coffee after all.

From a financial perspective, there’s no doubt!! 😊

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC So it should act more like a market reference price rather than a direct guide to what specialty coffee should cost.

In our part of the market, there is very little relationship. I’m not sure if it’s still the case but the C price may have been used as a foundation - with the offer of a premium if the grower managed to get the quality up over 80, which would technically make it ‘speciality grade’ - but this is still low quality coffee (and part of why I think speciality should be 85+ at least, rather than 80+). In those cases it could make sense for the grower to pick better for example if it meant they got an extra 20% or whatever. Fairtrade works in much the same way, or at least it did - again, it’s not really something we come across in our part of the market.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC But if current green prices are still much lower than what you guys have been paying for years, then the C price clearly doesn’t reflect the kind of coffees you buy, even if I look at the continuous adjusted futures price over 25 years. I’m curious why that gap is so wide.

I think you’d probably be shocked at the difference between a 79 scoring coffee and an 85 (as an example and usually the lowest scoring lots we buy). It’s an absolutely huge difference.

There are two main things to remember about the C price. Firstly, coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world so the price is largely the result of speculation (including predictions about future crop quality, market demand etc). Secondly, it’s used mainly by huge companies to negotiate contracts with suppliers who are growing coffee on a larger, usually industrial scale. It’s a completely different product really. The price is the price and there is no real incentive for doing anything in the whole process well. Pick the under-ripe coffee at the same time as the ripe and over-ripe coffee - one day for picking (probably using machines) - it’s much cheaper than getting people to do it and it doesn’t matter, because the price is the same anyhow.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC So in my head, C is the floor or reference point, not the full specialty price.

again, the two things are not related at this point. The skilled farmers, growing good coffee have no interest in the C price, it has no bearing on the price. The coffee will be sold on the cup quality alone.

…and this is something that’s changed for the better in recent years. The people importing coffee seem to be better at working with growers to help them understand what quality focussed roaster are looking for and convincing them that the extra effort is worth it for them.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC I also really appreciated your point about pricing flexibility based on how the coffee actually cups when it arrives. If I understood correctly, you might take a better margin on a coffee that overdelivers for its green cost, but accept a lower margin on a coffee that doesn’t cup as well as expected. That’s a really interesting insight.

I don’t know how widespread this is and I’d be interested to know from other roasters too, but people rarely talk about that stuff in the industry.

Coffee can change quite a bit in the several months between a sale is agreed from a pre-shipment sample of green coffee (i.e. a small amount sent by air at harvest time) to the landed coffee (the actual lot, arriving by boat months later). Moisture content changes, delays in export, storage issues etc etc can all have a negative impact on the coffee.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC why does quality not always feel consistent with the higher price?

I think this is mainly about higher prices just become the new normal prices. The shocks you mentioned earlier (Covid, crazy C price movements) push everything up, but they don’t come down much. I think that’s similar with a lot of stuff we buy. I think it’s probably a good thing with coffee, which has been too cheap (I mean the price paid to growers) for a long time - they see a relatively small part of the retail price after all and the amount of work and risk involved in producing good quality coffee is really quite incredible.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC why does quality not always feel consistent with the higher price?

I think this is mainly about higher prices just becoming the new normal prices. The shocks you mentioned earlier (Covid, crazy C price movements) push everything up, but they don’t come down much later.

I think that’s similar with a lot of stuff we buy. I think it’s probably a good thing with coffee, which has been too cheap (I mean the price paid to growers) for a long time - they see a relatively small part of the retail price after all and the amount of work and risk involved in producing good quality coffee is almost unbelievable.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC Are you seeing any noticeable improvement in green coffee quality?

I’d say yes, overall quality is always creeping upwards. Processing in particular is better - cleaner coffee, especially naturals and honeys. There’s a lot of variation of course and the main caveat is that bad weather can mess everything up.

Consider this too. A few years back, the Kenyan harvest was really bad (I can’t remember the details right now), and the prices that year were simultaneously higher than we’d seen previously. So, less quality, more expensive.

People always want coffee from Kenya, so the good lots fetched much higher prices , simple supply and demand stuff. Those ‘good’ lots would have been average lots in a normal year.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC I know we’re seeing a lot more experimental processing now, probably as an effort to get more expression and value out of the beans, for better or worse.

I also wonder why farmers would risk genuinely good-quality beans with advanced processing techniques like anaerobic fermentation, rather than using those methods to improve or maximise value from more average lots.

I’m sure they wouldn’t risk their entire harvest on experimental processing either. I’d imagine they would only apply these techniques to selected lots where the potential upside is worth it, rather than putting their best or full crop at risk.

If I’m being totally honest, I’m not sure I can point to many examples of this type of coffee where I’m confident that the green quality is any better than what would be used on the say a washed lot. In fact, I suspect the inverse is true. Like your filter argument - and the reason I’ll always take a washed coffee above all else, there’s nowhere to hide.

Co-ferments are not ‘coffee’ for me, it’s a different thing - with the exception of yeast inoculation and the like. Hopefully it’s all just a fad that will run out of steam at some point.

LeefromFoundryCR

LMSC I know we’re seeing a lot more experimental processing now, probably as an effort to get more expression and value out of the beans, for better or worse.

I also wonder why farmers would risk genuinely good-quality beans with advanced processing techniques like anaerobic fermentation, rather than using those methods to improve or maximise value from more average lots.

I’m sure they wouldn’t risk their entire harvest on experimental processing either. I’d imagine they would only apply these techniques to selected lots where the potential upside is worth it, rather than putting their best or full crop at risk.

Co-ferments are not ‘coffee’ for me, it’s a different thing - with the exception of yeast inoculation and the like. Hopefully it’s all just a fad that will run out of steam at some point.

Adrianmsmith

LeefromFoundryCR

That’s one step too far, you will be relieved to hear.

I’m happy to leave all that shit to you guys 🤪🤭 even if there were 34 hours in a day

Adrianmsmith

LeefromFoundryCR

Surely quality is very subjective in any case.

I’ve found i hate a lot of quality stuff and others hate my honey processed colombian recommend rubbish .

Anything with ferment anaerobic and even simple natural in its description rarely gets s second order.

Hate it. You guys love it.

Clodius

@LMSC as I always joke with friends complaining about prices: it’s not the product that is expensive, you’re too poor 🤣