About the Specialty coffee transaction guide
There are big questions facing specialty coffee sellers and buyers. According to numerous studies in different coffee-producing countries, prices paid for green specialty coffees often do not cover the full cost of production, let alone support thriving livelihoods for farmers and their families. Unless price discovery moves beyond an exclusive reliance on commodity price references, farmers cannot expect these prices to evolve in ways that make them excited about remaining in the industry. As such, more and more farms will struggle to find a next generation to take over. This makes buyers increasingly concerned about future supplies of the different coffees that are needed to push the industry forward.
ALTERNATIVE REFERENCE PRICES FOR SPECIALTY COFFEES
As volatile commodity prices continue to hover at historically low levels, industry leaders at various points along the supply chain are talking about the need to differentiate the women and men who grow specialty coffees from price references that come from commodity markets.
This project relies on an expanding group of data donors – roasters, importers, exporters, and others – who provide detailed contract data covering specialty coffee transactions from recent harvests. Researchers at Emory University are using this use this anonymized and appropiately aggregated information to create annual Transaction Guides that report on the distributions of recent FOB* prices for green specialty coffees.
TWO YEARS OF SPECIALTY COFFEE PRICES
The (revised) 2018 Transaction Guide is based on data describing thousands of contracts from the last two harvest seasons. These data are summarized as follows:
| Period | Contracts |
Lower-End Price (5th percentile) |
Middle Price
(median) |
Upper-End Price
(95th percentile) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017/18 | 8,721 | USD 1.41 | USD 2.91 | USD 7.25 |
| 2016/17 | 8,546 | USD 1.54 | USD 2.89 | USD 6.70 |
After reviewing the 38 roasters, importers and exporters that currently support this project, we invite you to download the (revised) 2018 Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide and learn more about how recent green specialty coffee prices were influenced by coffee quality, lot size, and producing region and country. This information will be valuable in future negotiations that determine the prices paid during subsequent harvest seasons by empowering sellers and buyers to look beyond commodity reference prices.
*Free on Board (FOB) prices are paid for coffees that are delivered and placed onto the ship at the port in the country of embarkation. They typically cover any overland transportation costs from mills or warehouses to the port of origin, but not any overseas shipping, insurance, or any transportation, customs, and overland freight costs incurred on arrival to the port of destination (International Chamber of Commerce)
About the PROJECT LEads
Peter W. Roberts
Peter is Professor of Organization & Management at Emory University and Academic Director of Social Enterprise @ Goizueta.
His research interests relate to how the behavior and performance of organizations evolve over time. Recently, he directs his interests in entrepreneurship and organizational performance toward topics in the field of social enterprise. His current projects focus on social entrepreneurs and accelerators, on micro-business development, and on the global specialty coffee industry.
For the past several years, he has also been spearheading Social Enterprise @ Goizueta, which focuses on making markets work for more people, in more places, in more ways. This led to the establishment of the global Entrepreneurship Database Program, the Start:ME accelerator program, and the Transparent Trade Coffee and Grounds for Empowerment programs.
Peter's Ph.D. is from the University of Alberta. Before taking up his current position at Emory University, Peter served on the faculties of Columbia University, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Australian Graduate School of Management.
Chad Trewick, Reciprocafé LLC
After more than two decades working on the roaster side in the Specialty Coffee industry as a director of coffee, Trewick formed Reciprocafé, LLC a consultancy prioritizing mutual benefit in coffee value chain support. Trewick has also spent time gaining a deeper understanding of the financial side of the coffee market.
Chad's goal is to broaden industry understanding of supply end challenges. His focus is to maintain access to green coffee as a raw material while strengthening the entire value chain encouraging scale-able, mutually beneficial relationships.
The Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide is one of his current projects. Chad is a long time volunteer at SCA -- a past board member. He drives the industry toward transparency and underscores, as a threat to specialty coffee's existence, financial challenges in countries where coffee is grown.
