Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (2023, Q3)

The Specialty Coffee Retail Price Index (SCRPI)* is a companion initiative to the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide. It was developed by researchers at Emory University to track the retail prices charged by a representative group of North American specialty coffee roasters.

In the third quarter of 2023, the SCRPI fell 1.7%. The average price for roasted specialty coffees at the end of September 2023 was $30.64 per pound. This breaks down into an average of $20.24 per pound for the lowest-priced coffees (+0.3%), and $41.04 for the highest-priced coffees (-2.6%) sold on the websites of the SCRPI roasters.

The year-over-year change in specialty coffee prices – from the third quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2023 – was +7.7%. This breaks down into a 3.2% increase for the lowest-priced coffees, and a 10.1% increase for the highest-priced coffees.

The corresponding ICO Composite Price for green coffee fell to $1.48 per green pound in September 2023. Thus, as retail prices for specialty coffees fell 1.7%, commodity prices fell 6.6% during the third quarter of 2023. Year over year, as average retail prices for specialty coffees rose 7.7%, the ICO Composite Price fell 23.4%.

* The number of SCRPI roasters currently stands at 55. Green Mountain Coffee was acquired by Keurig, which does not sell roasted coffee in bags. The website for Supreme Bean is currently under construction. Stone Cup Roasting did not sell its coffees on-line during the current quarter. Starbucks (Allegro Coffee) stopped selling coffees on-line during the fourth quarter of 2017 (third quarter of 2021).

Documentando los Efectos de Covid19 en las Compras de Cafés Especiales

Las cadenas de suministro de café alrededor del mundo entraron en la pandemia de COVID-19 durante otra prolongada crisis de precios del café. Además, existen razones para creer que la pandemia agrava los desafíos existentes al tiempo que crea otros nuevos, quizás más para los productores que invirtieron fuera del café ‘commodity’ hacia mercados de cafés especiales más lucrativos.

Dadas estas condiciones precarias, es imperativo que redes de apoyo de la industria consideren las acciones e intervenciones de mercado que apoyen una "nueva normalidad" equitativa y sostenible para los productores de cafés especiales. Optimizar estos esfuerzos requiere una comprensión clara de cómo la pandemia influyó en los volúmenes y precios contratados de los cafés especiales cosechados y vendidos durante la temporada de cosecha 2019/20.

Este reporte aprovecha los datos de contratos detallados de la Guía de transacciones de cafés especiales, además de información de varios grupos focales con profesionales experimentados de la industria para rastrear cambios específicos del mercado a medida que el sector de cafés especiales lidiaba con los efectos inmediatos de la pandemia de Covid-19. Entre otras cosas, los datos muestran que la pandemia tuvo un efecto general negativo en las ventas de cafés especiales y un efecto dramático en la composición de esas ventas.

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Documenting the Effects of Covid19 on Specialty Coffee Purchases

Global coffee supply chains entered the COVID-19 pandemic during another long-standing coffee price crisis. Moreover, there are reasons to believe that the pandemic exacerbates existing challenges while creating new ones, perhaps more so for producers who invested away from commodity grade coffee into more lucrative specialty markets. Given these precarious conditions, it is imperative that industry stakeholders consider market actions and interventions that support an equitable and sustainable ‘new normal’ for specialty coffee producers. Optimizing these efforts requires a clear understanding of how the pandemic influenced contracted volumes and prices for green specialty coffees harvested and sold during the 2019/20 harvest season. 

This report leverages detailed contract data from the Specialty Coffee Transaction Guide plus insights from several focus groups with experienced industry professionals to track specific market changes as the specialty coffee sector dealt with the immediate effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Among other things, the data show that the pandemic had a negative overall effect on specialty coffee sales and a dramatic effect on the composition of those sales.

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